


There's a Devil in the Church

by Jordan_Marine



Series: Chasing Down the Gods, and I Hope you Find your Dream [1]
Category: The Talon Saga
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Dante is confused, Gen, Inferno Spoilers, Injury Recovery, Major Character Injury, Redemption, Wes acting as doctor, moral crisis, redemption arc via kidnapping
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-25
Updated: 2018-11-25
Packaged: 2019-08-29 07:25:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 11
Words: 28,536
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16739662
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Jordan_Marine/pseuds/Jordan_Marine
Summary: Dante never felt remorse for the Night of Fang and Fire; after all, he only did what was necessary. But when he takes a bullet to the back, and Cobalt's underground is the one to keep him from dying then and there, he might have to re-evaluate his life decisions. Before the world ends.





	1. Dante

**Author's Note:**

> This story is basically a 30,000 word moral crisis, so strap in. I promise not to kill Dante.

Everything hurt, so much that he couldn’t process anything else. He was bleeding. He was drowning. He was burning. And everything in his vision went spinning into white, bright and blinding and overwhelming, leaving him only with the pain pain  _ pain  _ from from his chest to his back, radiating down his spine until it was all that he knew. He was on fire. He  _ had _ to be on fire.

This was what dying felt like.

_ “Shite, we’re not just leaving him! He may be a murderous bastard, but he’s still Ember’s brother!”  _

Darkness. Pain. Burning, pressure,  _ pain,  _ fear and adrenaline, but he felt imobile, trapped inside of his body that hurt too much to move, barely clinging onto consciousness. He didn’t know where he was, or what was happening. He tried to open his eyes, but he realized that they were already open. It was foggy and black, all that he could process was what he could feel, and that was only  _ pain.  _

_ “Dante, I’m putting Ember on the phone. She’s going to talk with you, try to pay attention to her.” _

And then he was numb. He couldn’t feel his pain anymore, he couldn’t find his body, he could barely string together his thoughts. He might be in danger. He might be afraid. But… it was so hard… to… to…

_ “Ember, you can’t give any more of your blood, you’ll pass out. I don’t want to have to take care of both of you.” _

_ “He still looks so pale… is he going to make it out?” _

_ “I don’t know.” _

_ “Dammit Dante…” _

He wasn’t sure how long he existed there before the dark numbness gave way to a blunt pain and blurry light. His ears started to ring, and he still couldn’t make out any details with his eyes. He tried to lift his arm and groaned slightly when his body protested. Human body— he was human, laying on his back, a blanket pulled up to his chest. Where  _ was  _ he? What had happened? Why did everything…

A shape appeared beside him, and for a moment he swore it was Ember. But she was a rogue, so there was no way she could be with him, wherever he was. He still tried to lift his arm to grab at her, but his arm couldn’t find the strength to rise off of whatever he was laying on. The ringing in his ears was getting less intense, leaving him able to hear what not-Ember was saying.

“...Because he’s the person who saved Dante’s life, is why! If anyone has a chance of explaining what happened, let alone convincing him not to do anything stupid, it would be a damn medic in this place.  _ Please? _ ”

His vision sharpened. It was definitely Ember, and it didn’t look like a hallucination. He took a sharper breath and felt his ribs grate against each other in protest. His heart picked up. He couldn’t move. It hurt to breathe. And  _ Ember  _ was sitting beside him.

Dante thought back, racking his brain for the last thing that he remembered. He… he was on his way to China, he was pretty sure, but there was a detour to Chicago because he had to speak with the Archivist. A simple inquiry over how Cobalt had gotten information about the Patriarch, because he shouldn’t have known any of that. He had made it to the airport, and then his hotel.

His heart pounded against his chest and he heard himself inhale sharply.  _ Mist  _ had been there, in his room, along with Cobalt. His memory blanked out just about around there, but he could guess what happened.

“Oh god,” he heard himself whisper. “ _ Oh my god. _ ”

“Dante, thank god you’re awake!” Ember looked at him and smiled at him. “How are you feeling?”

“Where am I? Where are my bodyguards? What did you do to me?” He clenched his fists and tried to raise himself again, but his back cramped up and kept him immobile before his could even get onto his elbows. Ember winced. “Ember, what did you let Cobalt do to me?”

The door opened. Dante looked past Ember as a human walked into the room. He looked around college-aged, maybe a bit older, with brown hair and dark circles under his eyes. He was carrying a white box, which looked like a first aid kit.

“So he is awake,” the human said. His voice had a harsh British accent, grating and unprofessional. “So are you going to go to sleep now, Ember, or will I actually have to go through with my threat of drugging you?”

“Who are you?” Dante asked and tried to sit up again. His ribs grated against each other again. He decided that it would probably be best to stop moving.

“I’m the lucky bastard who dug a bullet out of your chest. Ember, go to bed.”

“But Dante—”

“I’m not going to suffocate the bastard just because you decided to lay down. It’s been two days— if I were going to kill him, he’d be dead.  _ Please  _ go to bed so I won’t have to worry about you, too.”

“I’m not tired.”

“You’re a bloody liar is what you are,” the man muttered and shook his head, but didn’t repeat his order. He sat down next to Dante. Dante felt his lips curl into a snarl as the human took his hand, which he could see had an IV attached to it. “Don’t give me that, Talon—”

“Who are you?” Dante growled. “If you and Cobalt are hoping to blackmail Talon or get any information, you won’t succeed.” He felt a dull pain in his hand as the human injected something into the IV. “What are you doing?” He felt smoke rise in his chest and fingernails harden into claws. The human didn’t flinch, only slapping his wrist.

“If you shift, you will not only tear your stitches and bleed out in approximately a minute, but you could puncture your lungs with your broken ribs, and probably cause a bullet to sever your spinal cord. I wouldn’t recommend it,” he said. Dante’s eyes widened. “Seriously, I’m not kidding. You’re healing very slowly, for some reason. I can’t believe you still have to have stitches.”

“What did you do to me?” Dante repeated again. He knew that he was starting to sound like a broken record, he wanted answers. He didn’t know where he was, or who his human was, or even what landed him in this situation. All that he knew was that it  _ hurt  _ and he couldn’t move.

“You got shot,” the human supplied. “Stop squirming, I’m not going to hurt you. I’m clearing your IV so I can safely remove it. I highly doubt that you actually want a needle in your hand.”

“I— I want to talk to Cobalt.”

“He’s busy.”

“Let me talk to Cobalt,” Dante kept his voice from shaking and hardened his eyes, letting a snarl form at his lips to hide the panic rolling off of him in waves. Most humans would have immediately dropped their gaze and complied, knowing how powerful he was, but this human only tightened his grip on his hand and took the IV needle out. He taped a bandaid over his hand and met his gaze, smiling coldly.

“No.”

“Then who’s his second in command? I want to speak with them,” he said. The human smirked, but stayed silent.

Dante took a breath and tried to sit up again. He got a bit further, but then something in his back jolted and sent electricity down his spine. He screamed and fell back down.

“ _ Stop,  _ Dante. You took a lot of damage, and there’s still a bullet in you, against your spine. You can’t move too much.”

“Ember, what did you—” He blinked, finally registering what she had just said. “There’s a  _ what  _ in me?” He took a few breaths and clenched his fists to keep his hands from shaking. “Do you people not know how damaging leaving a bullet inside a dragon can be?”

“I’m not an amateur, Dante,” the human scoffed. “It won’t be an issue unless you shift.”

“Oh god,” he whispered again and closed his eyes. He was trapped. Cobalt and his rogues had him at their complete mercy, and he couldn’t detect a lie in that human’s voice. There was a bullet near his spine that would kill him if he shifted.

_ Maybe they’re lying. He can’t be serious, can he? They wouldn’t actually leave a bullet in, I can’t stay human  _ **_forever._ ** _ I can’t. I need to get away, I need to escape I— _

“I’m going to check your wounds for infection,” the human said.

“Don’t touch me, mortal!”

“Bloody hell, I haven’t gotten  _ that _ one for nearly twelve years,” the human rolled his eyes. “I almost forgot how uninsulting it was. Look, Dante, I am the  _ only  _ medic in the area other than Cobalt, who doesn’t know nearly as much as I do. You still can barely raise your own head. You can either let me do my job or get sepsis. Okay? Okay.”

Dante forced his expression to go neutral and shrugged as best he could. He tried to ignore the human as he worked, unbuttoning his shirt and peeling the bandages off of his chest.

“So I’m your prisoner now?” Dante looked over to Ember, forcing his voice to be calm. “Locked up and incapacitated? What do you hope to accomplish by this, other than making the organization more angry?”

“Talon already wants us all dead, I don’t think this is exactly a tipping point. Besides, you did send vessels after all of the safehouses. You did let Cobalt and Garret to be tortured. You  _ did  _ hand me over to the Elder Wyrm to be killed,” she said coldly. Dante furrowed his eyebrows—  _ that  _ wasn’t right.

Ember’s expression softened. “I wish that I didn’t have to fight you, Dante. And right now, it’s pointless. I don’t expect for us to see eye-to-eye on anything, but I’m begging you to—”

“What? To sit here compliant?” he scoffed. “You would see your own brother imprisoned like an animal.”

“You would see your own sister slaughtered?” Ember asked and clenched her fists. “Look, Dante. Just stay put, okay? Be somewhat agreeable with Wes.”

“Who’s Wes?” Dante asked.

“I’m Wes,” the human sighed. “As lovely as this conversation is, could you try to hold still during it? I may not have a hoard of money as dragons prefer, but I do have an astonishing amount of ketamine, and I will drug you unconscious.”

Dante felt some of the blood drain from his face. He nodded stiffly— he really was at their mercy. He couldn’t shift. He couldn’t get out of bed. He couldn’t even raise his head. The human could drug him if he acted out. And everything  _ hurt. _

“Try to take some time to recover before you go off trying to kill us, okay?” Ember continued, pushing some hair out of his face in an almost-caring manner. As if she ever cared for him. She had always  _ only  _ looked out for herself, leaving him in the dust as soon as it was convenient.

He would get out of this. He’d get back to Talon. And then he’d destroy this underground, once and for all.

If he could just _ move. _

“Where am I?” Dante finally asked again, trying to find a window to look out of. It was covered with a thick curtain, letting in almost no natural light. The room was mostly bare— only one other bed, vacant, a dresser with a cracked mirror, and a closed door that probably led to the hallway. “And when can I speak to Cobalt?”

“You’re in an isolated area with a few other hatchlings. It’s a safe place, and there’s not too much of a chance of Talon sending in any vessels to torch the building,” Ember said. “As for when you can talk to Cobalt, I don’t know. He’s pretty busy. But you can ask Wes just about anything and he’ll know. He probably won’t say much, but...”

“Are you seriously passing off your homicidal brother onto me?” Wes asked and as Dante repressed a groan.

“What would the human know enough to anwer—”

“I’m Cobalt’s second hand, you bloody brat. I’m going to lift you up a bit to try and assess the damage to your spine, please be cooperative. Ember, could you support his lower back?” The human interrupted and slid his hand under his back to support him. Dante jolted and tried to roll off of the cot. He almost succeeded too, before Ember stabilized him and helped lift him up. His back screamed and protested, sending currents around his ribs and down to his legs.

“Do— don’t touch me,” he gasped. Ember finally got him into a semi-sitting position and the worst of the pain faded, leaving him thoroughly uncomfortable and panicked, but able to process more than the burning in his back and chest. The human made quick work of an exit wound that had torn through his ribs and rebandaged it before applying slight pressure on his mid back. Dante hissed and clenched his fists.

“The bullet hit this vertebrae,” He said. The pressure released. “It’s the Thoracic 9, not that anyone except for me knows what that is, let alone cares. Fortunately for you, it’s lodged in the body of the vertebrae, and your nerves have remained relatively undamaged. From what I can tell. But, again, shifting will likely sever your spine and could repunture your lungs, which would be very unpleasant to deal with. I may be the best bloody medic we have, but there’s only so much to be done when it come to nerve damage.”

Dante nodded weakly as his mouth went dry.

“Is there any way to take it out?” he asked it came out as more of a whimper than he wanted it to.

“Not by me. Maybe if we get a doctor who actually got their medical degree, we could. At the current moment, I’m more interested in keeping you alive than removing a bullet from your spine, an operation that I’ve never done before and could easily kill you.”

“Wes,  _ try  _ for some tact,” Ember whispered. Dante felt his heart stammer at their words.

“Ember, he personally tried to kill you, Riley, and Garret. He aided with the vessel project, which nearly wiped out the entire underground. I will do no such thing,” the human said. Dante kept the wince off his face. Barely.

“Yeah, well, you were nice to Garret when he got shot,” Ember muttered.

“That’s because he was either delirious or unconscious. This one is neither,” He human placed a hand on his chest, the other still on his back. Dante tried not to squirm. “Take a deep breath in and out.” Dante did as he was told. “Again… and again… any additional pain?”

_ Just a medical assessment. You need this done if you want to get out, it would be a whole lot worse if you weren’t given one. Just answer the questions and follow their orders, Dante, it’s just a medical assessment. _

“None,” he said.

That was how the next few minutes went. Wes didn’t react much, but enough that Dante could tell that he wasn’t in too much trouble. That or the human truly didn’t care if he died. He had attempt to do a few physical things— lift his arm, lift his leg— which he knew he had done badly at. His legs felt too stiff to move, which wasn’t a good sign. By the end, when Ember finally lowered him back into a horizontal position, he was exhausted, eyelids fluttering.

“So?” he mumbled ineloquently. “How bad is it?”

“You didn’t seem to take very much damage,” he said. Dante breathed a sigh of relief. “However, if you want to have it remain that way, you will not move from your cot unaided without my permission. Understood?”

“I’m not taking orders from—”

“A bullet went through your sternum and hit your spine, you’re not just going to walk away from it. You want to walk in the future? Then you  _ will  _ take orders from me,” the human interrupted. “I’ve set up a camera in this room to monitor you, and I sleep in the hallway. If you feel like you’re about to die, scream. If you can’t breathe, then there’s nothing I can do.”

“ _ Wes! _ ” Ember glared at the human, who rolled his eyes. 

“Try to visually alert the camera and I’ll do what I can. I’ll be coming in every so often to make sure that you’re not choking on your own spit or whatever.”

Dante nodded and forced himself to keep his eyes open, but he was losing the battle against sleep. He didn’t want to sleep around Ember or the human, with a rogue underground surrounding him on all sides. It left him more vulnerable than he already was.

“Ember, I assume you’ll be staying in this room?” the human continued to speak. Dante closed his eyes for several seconds before opening them again. He let his head drift to the side as his vision blurred in and out of focus.

“Of course.”

“Alright, then. Tell me if you feel like something’s wrong. Until then, I still have Nettle to help.”

“Yeah. Thanks, Wes.”

“Whatever.”

Dante saw the human walk to the door, and open it, glancing back one last time at him.

“Go to sleep, Dante.”

Dante wanted to say something defiant to the man, who had the gall to order him around. Instead, his eyes closed and his consciousness finally gave up.


	2. Ember

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Backstory time

The next two days were mostly spent in a bare room, keeping watch over her brother. Dante spent most of his time sleeping. He was so pale and still that he looked comatose, and he could only stay awake for about fifteen minutes at a time. That time was never spent in conversation— she’d call Wes in, and he’d help Dante eat, drink, strap him into a back brace and usually get her to help carry him to the bathroom down the hall. She knew how miserable Dante had to be, because he didn’t act indignant over his treatment. Just tired and a little pathetic. She supposed that being a chameleon hadn’t prepared him for how much taking a bullet hurt. He’d usually ask to speak to Riley, and accept Wes’ refusal with little protest.

For the most part, she was bored. She didn’t want Dante to be alone— if he woke up, he needed someone with him. Garret would come in fairly often, but his head was obviously elsewhere. Probably wondering about the Order, if she had to guess. Jess provided her with a few books to pass the time. She had never much liked reading, but it was better than staring at a wall. Sometimes, right after Dante went to sleep, she’d go down the hallway and and talk to the other hatchlings that were also stuck in their rooms, too injured to move.

“How is Riley doing?” Ember asked Wes after a particular taxing round of caring for a conscious Dante. It wasn’t the best thing to ask, probably, but she hadn’t seen him since he came back from the mission that brought Dante back to her.

“He’s holding up alright. Still grieving, of course— it’s only been a week, we both are…” Wes swallowed thickly and took off his latex gloves. “He might actually be getting less sleep than I am, which is saying something. Jade is helping, though. The hatchlings love her, and she has the whole… calm aura, or whatever. I can’t believe I just used the word  _ aura. _ ”

Ember cracked a smile. “Well, at least she’s still here. And she’s fully recovered?”

“Yes. Dragons and their healing. Honestly, I want to say I’m jealous, but I’m just relieved. Couldn’t imagine doing this if you had a human healing factor,” Wes said and rubbed the bridge of his nose. He looked worse for wear, but she knew that everyone did. Every injured dragon with more than a cracked rib or a few lacerations had to be in the same hallway so Wes could stay close to all of them, and everyone agreed that Dante would be isolated. That meant there were five hatchlings in two rooms, two of which had to stay in dragon form to heal. So of  _ course  _ everyone looked exhausted.

“Wes…” Ember started, but her voice faded. Wes blinked and focused his attention on her. “I know that you adopt this sort of… softer persona... when you’re dealing with injury.” Wes raised an eyebrow. “Like how you’re handling Kain right now because one of his eyes was gouged out.”

“I just like Kain more than you, Ember,” Wes said.

“And how you talked to Garret while he was delirious,” she continued.

Wes clenched his jaw. “Okay, I can’t claim that I like St. George more than you. You win. What’s your point?”

“Dante’s spine,” Ember said. Wes looked away. “Is there any fixing it? Will he be able to shift again?”

Wes didn’t respond for a while, which only made Ember more nervous. He obviously knew the answer— he had been researching spinal injury and contacting rogue doctors in the Network ever since he dragged Dante back to the farmhouse. But he didn’t want to say anything outright, which meant he didn’t have any good news.

Ember closed her eyes. She didn’t want to feel any sympathy for her brother— he had betrayed her over and over, this would keep him safer to be around. But the idea of keeping any dragon from going back to their true form was enough to make her shudder.

“I don’t know, Ember,” Wes finally said. “You have to believe me when I say that I want to be able to take it out— I’m not heartless, and I know how much it would destroy a hatchling to be barred from their true body. But it’s an  _ awful  _ wound and a bloody miracle that he can walk at all. As his… doctor, I guess, I’d rather he be stuck in human form but able to breathe and walk unaided than to be able to shift but need to use machines to live for the rest of his life. We just don’t have access to what he would need if he damaged his spine.”

Ember swallowed and nodded, grabbing for Dante’s hand and squeezing it lightly.

“Stupid brother…” she whispered. “Why couldn’t he have just gone with us in Crescent Beach, before he got in too deep? And now… dammit, he’s actually in trouble this time. I always thought that it would be me that would be taken down by a bullet, not him.”

Wes stayed silent for a moment, tracing the wood on the floor. 

“What happened?” she asked. Wes looked up. “You and Riley have been so busy, that I never got to ask about the mission.”

“Well, You remember that Mist got pulled away by her employer, right? Riley insisted on coming with her, and I went because I could tell _someone_ was going to get shot— granted, I thought it would be Riley,” Wes said, and Ember nodded. She did remember that conversation. The one where she learned that the Archivist was Mist’s boss, and that he could _maybe_ be trying to help the rogue’s cause. Mostly, she remembered a lot of yelling by both Riley and Mist over secrets and loyalties and the current state of Talon and the Underground.

“Well, in the car, Mist told us the mission— we needed to keep Dante from getting to the Archivist. Riley was planning on killing the bodyguards and kidnapping him, but Dante panicked and was about to shift, apparently, so Riley shot him before he could. He didn’t mean for him to be so injured, just enough to keep him down, but you can’t  _ aim  _ for that in that situation. He called me in as soon as the battle was over. I… I didn’t want to leave Dante for dead.”

“Thank you, Wes.”

“Piss off, I didn’t do it out of the goodness of my heart. I just didn’t want  _ you  _ to deal with your twin dying. You were sad enough when St. George got shot.”

“Thank you, anyway.”

Wes shook himself and stood.

“I need to make sure the other hatchlings aren’t dead. Yell if you need anything. Maybe try to leave the room if you’re feeling ambitious.” he said. He walked into the hallway and closed the door behind him, leaving her alone with her brother.

Ember sighed and looked back down at him. He looked so different to the Dante she knew from Crescent Beach, and the Dante she saw at the lab. He was still pale, hair in disarray and dirty from sweat. And he looked  _ small. _

“You better be okay, Dante,” she whispered to him. “And then I can show you how good the underground is. And here you can be  _ free. _ ”


	3. Dante

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Riley exists, and Dante's moral crisis begins

By the third day out of being completely comatose, Dante managed to cling to a lucid consciousness for more than fifteen minutes. Which made him realize exactly how much the bullet wounds hurt. He hadn’t been shot before, and it wasn’t something he could just ignore. Every breath made his still-healing ribs grate against each other. Moving his shoulders meant feeling his muscles tear a little bit further. And when he tried to shift into a better position his back seized up and reminded him that there was still a  _ bullet  _ embedded in his  _ spine. _

Being awake, lucid, and painfully aware of the bullet in his body every time he tried to move, also came with the unpleasant side effect of realizing exactly how trapped he was. He knew why Cobalt brought him to this safehouse: he had information on Talon. He could be a bargaining chip, if worst came to worst. He knew why he wasn’t fighting tooth and nail to get out: he could barely move. He needed medical help. But that didn’t mean he  _ liked _ it. And he liked being in the dark even less.

“Ember,” he rasped. Ember, who hadn’t seemed to move from her bed since he was kidnapped, looked up from her book. “Let me talk to Cobalt.”

“He’s busy,” she said and stood, walking over to sit next to him. Dante groaned and raked a hand through his hair, which was getting  _ gross.  _ “When he has time, he’ll talk to you. Right now there’s just too much stuff to do.”

“ _ Please,  _ Ember,” he jerkily moved his hand to grab hers, feeling its warmth next to his cold fingers. Ember squeezed his hand in response. “I can’t just lay here for another day knowing nothing about what’s happening.”

“It’s not important.”

“How is it not important? You kidnapped me, Ember, I’d like to talk to the person who’s in charge of this—”

“First of all, you kidnapped us first, so don’t try to guilt trip. Second of all, it’s not an issue right now, Dante,” she interrupted. Dante clenched his jaw and felt his hand tighten around hers. “Look. When Cobalt’s ready to talk to you, he will.”

“It’s been  _ three days _ .”

“Technically, it’s been five. but you’ve only been awake for, like, three hours total.”

“Let me talk to him!” Dante tried to keep his voice even, but he could feel whatever reasonable facade he had put up over the past three days crumbling as desperation clawed its way through his mind. Ember sighed and ran a hand through her hair, making it stick up in different directions. Dante hoped that he had gotten through to her. He was going to go insane if he had to stay in the dark for much longer.

“The least he could do is look me in the eye,” he whispered.

“Fine… I can track him down and see if he’s can spare some time,” Ember said. Dante nodded. “I’ll have to leave to find Riley, so you stay put—”

“I’ve taken the threat to my spine seriously, sis. No moving without aid,” he muttered.

“Great. Then you’ll talk with Riley, with or without me in the room. He’ll answer your questions, you’ll answer his, it will be a fun time,” she continued softly, rubbing her thumb over his knuckles. “Don’t… I know that you aren’t  _ fond  _ of Cobalt, to put it lightly. But try to stay civil with him. He isn’t trying to make you miserable.”

Dante snorted. “Yeah, yeah… I know how to play nice.”

“Do you, though?” Ember asked, lips twitching. “Heed my wisdom, brother. It’s  _ my  _ turn to look after  _ you. _ ”

“So  _ that’s _ what you’re doing?”

“Well, what does it look like from your side?”

“You rogues shot me,” he whispered and felt a tremor in his hand. He cursed himself as it continued to shake. Dammit, he was a chameleon, the heir to the Talon Empire, not some over emotional child. Ember sighed deeply, raising his still shaking hand and rubbing it against her cheek. A purely draconic thing to do, and something they had both stopped doing long ago in their human forms. He felt his muscles relax and his eyes flicker shut again. Not in exhaustion, like they usually did, but in a barely noticeable calm. He could pretend for a moment that he wasn’t imprisoned, and Ember was with him where they belonged. Beside him in Talon.

“I’m sorry it had to be this way, Dante,” she whispered. “I’ll find Riley. Sit tight for a while, okay?” She stood and left, closing the door behind her. 

“Always will.”

The feeling left. He was a  _ prisoner,  _ Ember was his enemy. The underground that housed him had to be destroyed for the sake of the future of their species, Cobalt being first on the list. He couldn’t lose sight of that, even in his predicament, even though his pain, and even through  _ Ember  _ being the only one that would habitually interact with him. That’s how it had to be. The Elder Wyrm had ordered it.

Maybe,  _ hopefully _ he could spin his predicament to his advantage.

He wasn’t sure of the exact time, but he knew over fifteen minutes passed alone before the door opened. He met the gaze of Cobalt, who smirked a little bit.

“Look who’s awake. The prodigal son has returned to us,” he said and sat cross legged on the ground. Dante grit his teeth at the sight of the rogue dragon, relaxed and cocky and still insufferably free while  _ he  _ was stuck lying on a cot from three bullets to the chest. God, did he wish that Cobalt had died on the interrogation rack. “Relax, Infierno. I’m not here to send you to the nine circles of hell.”

Dante took a deep breath and tried to relax his neck and shoulders. It would do no good to put any additional strain on himself on the account of  _ Cobalt.  _ Ember looked between the two of them, flashed him what he assumed was meant to be a reassuring smile, and left. Great.

“They say you’ve been asking for me for the past few days. Well, here I am. What do you want to ask?” he said. Dante kept his expression devoid of all emotions, but he still felt heat build in his chest and stomach, as if the primal part of him was trying to lash out at Cobalt.

“I assume you have a reason for me being here instead of... dead.” The word burnt his throat. “I’d like to know what it is.”

“You’re not that special, Infierno,” Cobalt rolled his eyes. “The reason you’re alive is because my surly medic friend didn’t want Ember to set anything on fire when she heard that I killed her twin.”

“You’re the one that shot me?” he felt his heart start to beat faster in his chest and focused his gaze on the ceiling rather than the dragon sitting next to him. “Somehow, I’m not too surprised that you’d be the one to do it.”

“That’s low, even for a kid,” Cobalt snorted. “I… didn’t want it to go that way. You weren’t even supposed to be injured, but the situation escalated. I could tell you were about to shift, so I acted before you could.”

“I wouldn’t have shifted,” Dante said. Even if… he might have been preparing to. He didn’t remember all that much from the encounter after the bullets started flying, just panic. Then pain. Then he woke up and he was here. Wherever  _ here _ was.

But he still  _ doubted  _ he would have shifted.

“If it helps at all,” Cobalt continued, “I meant for it to be incapacitating, and something that Wes would have been able to fix within a matter of days. It wasn’t supposed to be permanently damaging, and I  _ certainly  _ didn’t expect it to hit your spine. I’m sorry that you’re in pain. Even if you  _ did  _ order Garret and I to be tortured.”

Dante swallowed as his hand drifted up to the one bullet hole that had gone through his sternum to his spine.

“Well, I guess you consider yourself lucky, then. Having me disabled.”

“No, I don’t,” Cobalt flicked his forehead. Dante clenched the sides of his cot. “Unlike some person in the room, I don’t receive  _ pleasure  _ from anyone else’s pain. Even someone as insufferable as you.”

Dante grit his teeth harder.  _ You need answers, Dante. Keep your head on for a bit longer. _

Not like he could actually stab Cobalt in his situation.

“Are they dead?” he asked, then realized that it wasn’t important to know and it was a vague question. “My bodyguards. Are they dead?”

“One is— again, it was unavoidable. The other one probably wishes he were, if I remember Talon correctly.” Dante knew that his expression must have changed, because Cobalt sighed, and his voice became softer when he spoke. “You really don’t know Talon, Infierno. If a guard, human or Gila, fails so spectacularly that the son of the Elder Wyrm gets kidnapped, the organization will make their life a living hell. You should see the state of some of the humans I get out of the organization. Ain’t pretty.”

“I don’t believe you. There were two of them against two  _ dragons,  _ taken by surprise, it wasn’t an honorable fight by any means. Talon would be merciful to him,” he said, mostly for his own sake. He wasn’t  _ attached  _ to them; they were human, and therefore beneath him. But they were still his bodyguards. They had been assigned to him for two months except for the few times a Gila would accompany him. He didn’t want them to come into harm’s way. He didn’t want one of them to be  _ dead  _ because of  _ Cobalt. _

“If that helps you sleep better,” Cobalt shrugged.

“Why were you in my room?” Dante switched subjects. Back on important things. He could think about dead bodyguards and other people the rogues killed later. “How did you even find me, and why  _ now? _ ”

“Sorry, Infierno. Those answers are above your paygrade.”

“I’ve been  _ shot _ , the least you can do is tell me why you… why you did it!” Dante heard his voice shake and clenched his fists, turning his eyes back to Cobalt, who rubbed at his temple.

“I have my ways of tracking traitorous older brothers, let’s leave it at that. As for why we were there? We wanted you out of the equation.”

“Why?”

“Above your paygrade.”

“What can I do? Tell the organization?” Dante snapped. “In case your human hasn’t told you, I’m not in a condition to move from my cot, let alone walk back to Talon. Whatever  _ bomb  _ you’re planting, I won’t be able to do anything to stop it.”

“Painfully true. But still. No,” Cobalt said. He blinked and his expression hardened. “And you will not refer to Wes as  _ my human _ again, if you wish to remain aided in your recovery instead of lying in a cornfield somewhere. He has a name. Use it.”

Dante huffed and felt hot smoke blow out of his nose. “Forgive my attitude,  _ sir. _ ”

“How many times do I have to tell you that you’re not special?” Cobalt’s lips twitched. “I’ve faced so much worse from my own underground. If you’re hoping that you can reverse this situation and get usable information out of me, you’re out of luck. I’m the one with experience on interrogations.” Dante blinked. “Yes, I can tell that you’re thinking about it. Don’t waste your time. Focus on recovery. Meditate on… something.”

Dante turned back to look at the ceiling. 

“Grinding your teeth is bad for you, by the way.”

“I won’t tell you anything about Talon,” Dante snapped. “You’re wasting your time.”

“I know, I know, you’re a loyal little… brat,” Cobalt said. “At least, you won’t say anything yet.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Dante looked over to him sharply, feeling the first bit of coldness in the back of his mind. He was talking to a basilisk, who knew the ins and outs of interrogation better than basic math. Dammit. _Dammit._

“I want to tell you something, Dante Hill, and I’d like you to listen,” the dragon said slowly, seeming to think over his words. “I refuse to believe that you’re completely devoid of morals. If I believed any hatchling was, I wouldn’t be able to do my job. So as you stay here, you’re going to get to meet the hatchlings that you and your vessel program tried to wipe off the map. At first you’ll try to rationalize what Talon has done— we deserved it, we shouldn’t have abandoned Talon, all of those things that help you sleep at night— but eventually, those hatchlings that you want dead are going to have names to you. You can’t ignore it forever, and eventually you’ll come to the conclusion that there  _ isn’t  _ a good explanation.”

“You really think so, don’t you?” Dante clenched his fists harder.

“I refuse to believe that you can’t be saved. Every dragon who gets out of Talon eventually sees what it really is,” Cobalt said.

He stood abruptly and left, closing the door before Dante could glimpse into the hallway. He could hear him and Ember speaking in low voices, too muffled for him to make out. He groaned and covered his face with his hands, pulling at his hair.

Cobalt had seemed so confident that he wouldn’t be able to escape. Dante wanted to scoff at his idiocy, but he couldn’t find a way to escape either. And if he did? What then? He didn’t know where he was, or how far he could get. He couldn’t find a way to get an advantage, he didn’t even know where he was other than  _ a safehouse.  _ What could he do if he was so  _ stuck? _

The door opened. Ember walked back in with what looked like a shirt in her hands, which she threw at Dante. It hit him in the face.

“Thanks?”

“You’re becoming a biohazard, but you can’t take a bath until Wes takes your stitches out. Hopefully some clean clothing will help,” Ember said and sat beside him, turning back to her book as Dante unbuttoned his current, sweat-drenched shirt. 

“I didn’t know that you enjoyed books,” he muttered.

“I don’t, it’s boring,” she said, setting down her copy of  _ The Giver  _ to get him out of a lying position. Dante bit back a complaint as she helped him change. “Unfortunately, there’s nothing better to do. I’m not going to leave you alone.”

Dante sighed. “I’m not going to try to escape, Ember.”  _ Not yet.  _ “What’s the worst I can do? Crawl to the door? I don’t think I could actually get that far.”

“It’s not like that, Tweedledee,” she flicked his forehead. “You really think I’m guarding you? I don’t want you to be alone right now because…” Ember looked away and squeezed his hand. “I’ve been shot before, Dante. I know how bad it feels, and I can only imagine what you’re going through, with the whole… shifting issue. I’m going to stay so if you need anything, I’ll be here as much as I can. Just until you can start walking again, at least.” 

_ Something to look forward to.  _ He closed his eyes and pulled the blanket closer around him.

“Yeah. Sure,” he replied. 

Cobalt’s words still floated around in Dante’s head. No one knew that  _ he _ had given the order to destroy the Chapterhouse.  _ He _ was responsible for killing those dragons that Cobalt mentioned. But it was necessary for Talon to prosper, and to rid the earth of St. George. They shouldn’t have allied with their enemy if they wanted to live. It wasn’t his fault that they all went marching into a war they were destined to lose.

_ That doesn’t change that you’re living with them now. Can you really hold onto Talon’s ideals while so deep into rogue territory? If what Cobalt said was true... _

This was Cobalt’s fault— he had been the one to convince all of these kids, including his sister, to leave the safety of the organization. It put all of dragon kind in danger, so Dante didn’t have a choice on whether or not to kill them. They wouldn’t have left if it weren’t for Cobalt, giving them  _ lies. _

That had to be true. It was the only explanation.


	4. Dante

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ember leaves, the moral crisis continues

The days passed slowly. He spent most of his time sleeping, mostly in order to escape his pain and near-constant feeling of helplessness. He didn’t see any of the other hatchlings either, even if he could hear them through the walls. Really, the only people that he habitually interacted with her Ember and the human medic. Sometimes Cobalt would come into the room, usually to ask for Ember and take her outside to talk in whispers that he couldn’t understand. Once or twice, he’d sit down next to Dante and talk to him— give him updates in life, answer his questions as vaguely as possible. His tone always cold and removed, but rarely let his emotions show in his words themselves, other than stating his satisfaction that Dante had to be on the other end of captivity for once. Dante wasn’t as successful in keeping his hatred contained, but Cobalt would only cut him off if he started moving. Something about “ _ if you damage your spine in my presence, Wes will come after me with a scalpel. As amusing as it would be, I don’t want him to die from stress, and neither do you.” _

“Hey, Dante,” Ember shook him awake early one morning. Dante blearily looked up at her and furrowed his brow. Her hair was tightly braided away from her face, and she was wearing a black tank top and cargo pants rather than her usual jeans and a t-shirt. 

“What?” he asked and tried to sit up. His back protested the movement before he could reach his elbows, and Ember pressed his shoulder back into the cot to keep him down. 

“We got a message last night from a… person of interest, and I need to go deal with it. I’m going to be gone for a few days— don’t ask questions, I’ll give you a rundown after I get back— anyway, be cooperative for Wes. He might move someone else into your room, so don’t… preach Talon propaganda, or anything. Nothing that would get you punched.”

“‘M not an idiot,” Dante closed his eyes and resisted the urge to curl up on his side. That would not end well for him.

“You got me fooled.”

“Where are you going?” he muttered, even if he knew it was pointless. 

“Away. But I’ll be back as soon as I can,” she said. Dante managed to grasp at her wrist before she could stand, and Ember sighed. “We got word from a… fourth or fifth party, depending on how you count. Not Talon, not St. George, not the Chinese. It might be helpful to our cause, so Garret, Riley, and I are going to check it out while Wes and Jade stay here to keep everyone from dying.”

“There’s another group?”

“We don’t know if it’s a group or just a really intimidating, but solitary rogue. Hence, we are leaving.” Ember gently pulled her wrist out Dante’s grasp and reached down to smooth back his hair. “Hang in there.”

“Ugh.”

“Yeah, love you too.”

She adjusted the blanket to better cover his shoulders and stood. 

“Why…” Dante asked as Ember stopped in her retreat. “Why are you being so nice? You’re usually less helpful when I get injured.”

Ember raised her eyebrows and turned to better face him. “Am I?”

“Yeah… like the time I got bitten by that rattlesnake. After the danger passed you thought it was funny, a dragon getting taken down by some snake. And complained about being punished for it. I guess… it was kind of inconsequential, in hindsight. Really hurt, though.”

Ember blinked slowly. “I don’t remember that. I…” she swallowed and clenched her fists, but then gave a transparent smile that Dante didn’t believe for a second. “I don’t remember very much from those days, anymore.”

Dante nodded and let his voice go down to a mumble. “I suppose it  _ was _ more memorable for me.”

“Yeah…” Ember said. “Get more sleep while I’m gone. I’ll be back to annoy you before you know it.”

Dante could hear the open and closing of a door as Ember left and rubbed his arm, where he could still feel twin puncture-wounds. She really didn’t remember? 

He closed his eyes, pulling the blanket to his chin. He pushed Ember from his mind. What she had said was important, he knew that it was— she had given him more information in that conversation than any other time— but it could be important later. Dante settled into a better position to sleep and released his hold on consciousness.

It was all he could do, as of late.

 

He woke up a while later, late enough in the day for the sunlight to pierce through the curtains over the window and hit the floor where he lay. He groaned and raised his hands to rake through his tangled, greasy hair. It was… day eight, he believed, since he was taken from Talon, including his comatose days. God knew that the organization had to be looking for him with a frenzy, and whoever was assigned his case— hopefully someone competent— had to be getting close. Either that or the Elder Wyrm would have the dragon’s head.

He was  _ not  _ looking forward to meeting the Elder Wyrm again. It wasn’t his  _ fault  _ that he was in a helpless situation, but she probably would see it as a failure. After the Night of Fang and Fire, he couldn’t deal with another failure, especially if it was a failure that was because of  _ Cobalt. Again. _

At least they wouldn’t think that he’d gone rogue.

_ Would they? _

The door opened. Dante looked to see Wes walk in, another hatchling at his heels, following at a pronounced limp. She sat down on Ember’s bed as soon as she could. Dante tried to keep her in his sight, ignoring the little bit of nervousness in the pit of his stomach. He wasn’t used to being with other hatchlings, especially rogue hatchlings. Did they know that he was responsible for attacking the chapterhouse, or trying to kill Riley?  _ Dammit,  _ this wasn’t looking good for him.

“Food, water, bathroom?” the medic asked, drawing Dante’s attention back to him.

“Who is she?” he asked. He heard the girl snort from Ember’s cot and saw the human roll his eyes. He sat down next to Dante and lifted him into a semi-sitting position, per usual. Dante managed to keep the still-present pain off of his face. “Are you going to answer my question?”

“Are you going to answer mine?” the human asked. Dante bit back a snarl. Insufferable human that didn’t know his place next to dragons. It was probably what turned him to Cobalt’s side in the first place.

“ _ Yes, _ ” he said. “It’s  _ noon,  _ what do you think?”

“That you’re a bloody brat.”

Wes continued to work around him, slipping on latex gloves before he undid his bandages, cleaned his wounds, and then re-did the gauze. His stitches had been taken out the day before, thankfully, but the wound was still tender, and apparently still at risk of infection. Dante wouldn’t know. 

“Dante, this is Nettle. She’s recently been cleared to not have my watching over her every move in case her leg re-broke, and she volunteered to babysit while Ember’s gone,” Wes said as he unscrewed a plastic water bottle and gave it to Dante, still helping him prop himself up. At least he could control his hands enough to grip the bottle himself at this point. “You can still bow out, Nettle. I would not blame you.”

“What else is there to do?” she asked. “I’ve been pretty much immobile for ten days.”

“Hey, you had more mobility after day two than this one has had since Cobalt shot him,” Wes said. Dante repressed a snarl at Cobalt’s name as he set down his half-finished water. Wes gave him a hot pocket. “ _ And  _ you had painkillers.”

“Wait, there are painkillers?” Dante asked.

“Not for you, Talon,” Wes said. “Nettle, help me support him while I strap him into the back brace.”

“Why don’t I get painkillers?” Dante asked. Not that he really wanted them. He was squeamish enough around medical things in general, and he had a feeling that being disoriented would make it worse. But  _ damn  _ would they be helpful.

“Eat your hot pocket, Talon Boy,” Nettle said as she limped over and knelt down beside him. “If I understood correctly, we are rather low on painkillers, and the underground gets dibs over you.”

Dante winced as Wes strapped him in, but the brace made sitting up easier. And for when he had to move. He continued to eat, finished his food, and then finished his water in silence. Then the medic eased him to his feet, taking most of his weight as he stumbled down the hallway and to the bathroom. He managed to brace himself on the vanity as Wes closed the door.

He looked like a ghost.

Dante shuddered. After eight days, he was usually good at not looking at himself in the mirror. His skin was grey with a sheen from oil and sweat, his hair was dirty and disorganized, and he had lost a noticeable amount of weight. His posture was bent and stiff, shoulders pained. He could try to straighten himself out, but it caused an electric current to go down his back and try to hunch against his brace again.

He barely recognized himself as the proud chameleon that he was. He looked more like a scared teenager.

_ Their fault. They did this to me, and they’ll pay. I will make them live long enough to regret ever laying a hand on me. _

As he finished what he needed to and hobbled back to the door, practically letting his legs give out in front of the human, it was starting to feel like wishful thinking.

 

Nettle didn’t speak with him, which was fine by Dante. She had a coloring book, apparently, and was very determined to finish. Either that or she just really didn’t want to talk. Dante tried to sleep through the first day, but with recovery came consciousness, which left him beyond bored and itching to move.

“Does Wes know when I’ll be allowed to walk?” He asked Nettle. She looked up from her book and shrugged. 

“I’d ask him the next time he comes in. I’m here to make sure you don’t try to military crawl out the door, not to be your nurse,” she said. Dante bit back a groan. Being gripey with Ember was one thing, but being so with a complete stranger would be just plain  _ pitiful. _

He was a little pitiful at this point. But things would improve once he got back to Talon. No doubt they had a surgery that would fix his spine, and then he’d be able to walk again. And  _ shift  _ again. He hadn’t shifted for nearly six months. 

Why  _ hadn’t  _ he? He knew that he wasn’t supposed to, but it would be easy to break the rules just once. Close the curtains to his hotel, send his guards outside, and shift just  _ once,  _ to have the feeling of living in his own body one more time.

_ One last time. _

“So… son of the Elder Wyrm,” Nettle said. Dante jerked and looked at her. She stared at him quizzically. “For all the hype Riley gave when he and Wes brought you in, you don’t look like much.”

Dante narrowed his eyes fractionally. “I suppose we all have our bad days. Riley doesn’t look too impressive, either.”  _ And yet, he poisoned my sister. He destroyed everything I worked for. He destroyed  _ **_me._ **

“What, you’re not a fan of his rebel-with-a-cause aesthetic? You prefer the juvenile businessman look?” she smirked, but then let it drop. Her gaze grew clouded. “I don’t know why Riley let you live.”

Dante’s heart skipped a beat. Did she know that he was in charge of the operation that nearly killed them all? That  _ should _ have killed them? His eyes darted to the door, and he considered screaming for Wes. He was defenseless, it wouldn’t be right to attack him while he was prone.

_ Wasn’t that what you did to that village? Killed them all while they were unprepared and without a way to call for help? _

_ There wasn’t any other choice. That was the only way to test the vessels. _

“I mean, what gives you the right?” she continued. Dante swallowed. “Five of us  _ died,  _ yet someone who willingly worked with the people who did it is allowed to live? You worked against Riley, but  _ you  _ get to live.  _ Look at me. _ ” Dante did so and met her gaze, copper brown irises and slitted pupils. “My best friend died in that raid, he was seventeen and he had never hurt anyone and he  _ died,  _ and you get to live. What makes you so special?”

That hurt more than it should have. He knew that dragons had died. He had gotten the reports from the cameras. He could rationalize it because they were rogues. They signed up for it the moment they left Talon. But it was different in this room, laying on a cot provided by the people he had tried to kill, with medical attention from the human that also had to deal with injury that  _ he  _ had caused. He had never had to  _ see  _ what had happened. He didn’t have to see the bodies or the grief, he just saw numbers. Not names. Not personalities. And now he was face-to-face with a girl that he had tried to murder, who looked heartbroken over her friend’s death.

_ They kidnapped you, Dante. They shot you and kidnapped you, they deserve no mercy. They will burn like the rest of the resistance. _

_ They could have killed you. _

The truth in that. They could have killed him. If their situation had been reversed, he would have killed them. He would have let them bleed out and he would have been  _ happy.  _ But he wasn’t in a body bag, or six feet underground. He was here. Imprisoned, yes, but alive and breathing.

More than Nettle’s friend would ever achieve again.

“I… I’m sorry for your loss,” Dante whispered. Nettle seemed to deflate, half-heartedly throwing a marker across the room. “Truly.”

“Everyone is. Riley is, and Wes is, and Ember is… but Remy’s still dead. He’s not coming back, no matter how sorry you all are,” she said. “And the worst thing is, I forget he’s gone. I keep wondering where he is, or calling for him so I can talk to him, and sometimes I think I see him in the fields. And then I remember.” She paused, eyes staring at nothing. 

“Why are you telling me this?” he whispered.

“You need to know the truth of your organization,” she said softly. Dante winced.  _ If only she knew.  _ “Almost everyone thinks that you can’t be swayed, and I think that I agree with them. But, even if you can’t be, you might as well know exactly who you’re working with. No use to be in the dark.”

_ I know exactly who I’m working with. They made their choice to go rogue, so they have to deal with the consequences. The Elder Wyrm does what’s best. _

Dante kept his mouth shut. Nettle was trying to mess with his head. She was trying to sway his loyalty. It wouldn’t work.

But Nettle was a kind person— no getting around that. Even though she was angry and injured and grieving, she was a kind person. If their situations were reversed, Dante would’ve ordered her death for abandoning the organization. By Talon’s rules, he should’ve been left to die or be tortured for information. No question. But he was alive. He was in  _ recovery _ . Which only lead to one possibility:

This underground was kinder than Talon would ever be.


	5. Dante

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Continued moral crisis, a few more characters are introduced

"Where's my sister?" Dante asked. It had been three days since she left, and Wes still didn't seem any closer to giving him a real answer.

"She's with Cobalt and Garret," Wes answered, as per usual. Dante groaned softly. "I actually got Riley's call a few minutes ago, saying that they're heading back. They'll be here by morning with any luck. I've been keeping Ember updated on your progress. She's proud of you, apparently."

"What?" Dante furrowed his brow. "Why?"

"Well, she was pretty surprised that you haven't gotten punched yet," he said. Dante snorted. "But also because you're talking to Nettle. You're awake for around ten hours a day. Little things like that."

"Talking to me is not something to be proud of," Nettle said from Ember's bed. Dante was frankly surprised that she was still in his room, since she usually went to her own room after dinnertime. He kind of wanted her to leave, if he was honest. She was her 'angry and closed off' mood today, and had been shooting him glares whenever he tried to talk to her.

"I think that getting this person to treat anyone civilly is a feat," Wes muttered.

"That's not fair—  _ ow,  _ what are you doing?" Dante winced as a sharp twinge went through his chest and back. Wes swore. "What is it?"

"You dislocated a rib when you were coughing a few hours ago," Wes said. "Don't worry, it's not life threatening, just annoying. But you might be running a slight fever, too… that doesn't bode well."

"What? You forced me to have a  _ sponge bath  _ to prevent infection, and I'm still sick?"

"Yeah, it happens. At least now you're not a biohazard. I'm going to put your rib back in place in three, two, one," Wes said. Dante heard a  _ pop  _ and felt a sharp pain in his torso, making him yelp. "And you're all done. Now if I could take your temperature, I'll leave."

"Yeah," Dante nodded. Wes gave him a thermometer and waited for it to beep.

"You're temperature is at 105.3 degrees fahrenheit, which would mean... about 40 to 41 celsius, if you prefer that system. Not too bad for a dragon. Probably just a minor infection."

"Joy."

"Yeah, I'm sorry. Hang in there," Wes said with absolutely no sympathy in his voice. "If you think you're in danger of dying within four hours, scream."

There was a crash from the hallway, and someone pounded on the door.

" _ What? _ " Wes snapped.

The door banged open to show a boy standing in the hallway, shaking. Wes straightened.

"It's Sage! He's acting strange, his breathing is getting all wheezy and  _ wrong,  _ and he's just twitching like Jem was before she— she—"

"But he's still breathing?" Wes stood, the almost casual stance he had adopted while working with Dante disappearing in an instant. The boy nodded. "Okay, okay,  _ stay here _ , Kain. I'll take care of it."

"He won't…"

"If there is  _ anything  _ that can be done, I'll do it. But you need to stay here, understood?"

The boy nodded, and Wes all but ran past him. There was a silence, where the boy stood in the doorway, shaking. Then he closed the door and sank to the ground, head resting against the door at an angle that Dante could better see his face.

Dante couldn't hold back the small gasp that came from his lips.

The boy's face was a  _ nightmare  _ of scars, most still leaving deep rivets that were still a discolored red against his pale skin. One eye had been completely demolished, the lid sunken in and shut. The other was still there, but the skin around it had taken just as much damage as the rest of his face.

"It's rude to stare," the boy muttered, remaining eye fixing on him. Dante looked away.

"Sage is…" Nettle started, but she didn't seem to have anything to finish with. "Wes knows what he's doing," she finished. The boy nodded slowly, but he didn't look hopeful. "He saved us, didn't he?"

"Didn't save Jem," the boy rasped.

"Who's…" Dante started to say, and then stopped when the boy fixed his remaining eye on him, narrowed in anger and red-rimmed. "What's happening with… Sage?"

"He's dying is what's happening,  _ Talon Boy, _ " he growled and pushed himself off of the ground, pulling at the strings of his hoodie. "First Isaac and then Jem and now…  _ dammit. _ "

"He's not dead," Nettle repeated. "And he got longer than Remy, at any rate."

"Well  _ good for him! _ " the boy screamed. Dante stiffened, and Nettle was on her feet in an instant, body going stiff. Dante felt the space in the room fill with the presence of a dragon, coiled just beneath her skin. The boy took a breath and scrubbed a hand over the more injured part of his face. "Sorry. I didn't mean it."

"You don't mean a lot of things," Nettle remained on her feet, fists clenched.

The boy shook his head and sat back down. When he spoke his voice shook. "During the attack, Sage was rammed against a building by a vessel. It caused a lot of damage. He hasn't even been able to shift back to human form since the battle because 'bone fragments could be knocked out of alignment' or whatever.  _ Eleven days  _ and Wes still can't give him the clear."

"I'm… sorry to hear that," Dante whispered. And he  _ was  _ sorry. Talon couldn't have opposition with what they were planning, but with so much bloodshed… the argument was starting to feel weak.

"Of course you are," the boy muttered. "Sorry doesn't seem to  _ do  _ anything, though, unless you're a better medic than Wes."

"No," Dante whispered. He swallowed. "Was your eye also…"

" _ Yeah.  _ Permanent trophy from fighting for a bunch of genocidal bastards, against fucking  _ Talon, _ " he spat the word like it was poison, and Dante felt himself flinch. "Still not sure if any of it was actually worth it." The boy swallowed and wiped at his remaining eye. "My name is Kain, by the way. I already know yours."

"Oh."

"Sorry about your back, while we're making useless apologies."

Dante blinked. "Thanks? Sorry about your..."

It was harder to apologize when it was actually his fault.

"Yeah, I'm sorry about it, too," Kain whispered. "I only really knew Sage for three months, when he had to move to my safehouse for a few weeks. We kept in contact after. And now…"

Dante closed his eyes, thinking back to Faith. He hadn't been attached, but that didn't mean that it didn't  _ hurt  _ when she died. He had been in charge of her, she was his responsibility, and she had died in an instant. He would still get nightmares, sometimes. It took him weeks to stop thinking about what he could have done differently. And if he  _ had  _ been emotionally attached on top of that, he wouldn't have known what to do.

What everyone in this safehouse had to be going through...

"He'll live, Kain," Nettle said. "Wes got all of us through—"

"Didn't get Jem through."

"Stop bringing up Jem!"

Dante felt his eyes widen and heard Kain's intake of breath at the intensity in Nettle's voice. After a moment Nettle stood and walked out the door without another word, leaving him and Kain alone. Kain growled softly and rubbed harder at his remaining eye.

"Wes  _ does  _ know what he's doing," Dante said softly. "I mean,  _ I'm _ alive now. aren't I?"

Kain snorted. "I suppose that you are... but you can probably tell by now that he can only do so much. With your current status."

Dante clenched his teeth. "Who's… who's Jem?"

"Her real name is— was Jahi, but she was never a fan of the name. She obviously couldn't call herself  _ Jam,  _ and  _ Jah  _ just sounds stupid, so…" Kain shrugged, and Dante felt his lips twitch. "She was really nice, a complete mom friend, if you know what I mean. She got along with everyone, looked out for everyone, swore to personally fistfight the entirety of St. George. Which is ironic, I guess."

"Oh." That seemed to be his only vocabulary for this conversation.

_ Necessary sacrifice. She was a rogue. _

But if her death was necessary, then Kain's and Nettle's deaths would also be necessary, and they were trying to be friendly, even after everything he had done. It would mean that  _ Wes'  _ death would be necessary, when he had saved Dante's life.

"It was so much easier to hate you when it was just Cobalt I was dealing with," Dante whispered to himself. Kain raised his eyebrows. Dammit, he really did have a fever. "Uh… sorry."

"It's... fine. There isn't a person here who hasn't gone through a moral crisis before joining up."

_ I'm not going to join up. You shouldn't have ever  _ **_left_ ** _ if you wanted to live. _

That sounded cruel, even to his own ears. Dear god, what was  _ happening  _ to him? He couldn't actually be believing what the rogues were telling him. He was a chameleon, the son of the Elder Wyrm, and the heir to the Talon Empire. He was  _ better  _ than this.

The door opened, and Kain shot to feet so quickly that he nearly lost his balance. Wes moved to steady him before he could fall.

"Is he alright? Is he—"

"He's fine, he's  _ fine,  _ bloody hell—  _ Bloody hell,  _ Kain!"

If anything, Kain just hugged Wes tighter. Dante also felt himself give a shaky sigh of relief and felt a weight lift. Sage, whoever he was, would make it. His death  _ wouldn't  _ be on Dante.

Wes managed to free himself from Kain's embrace and hold him at arm's length.

"There was a buildup of air in his chest cavity, and it put pressure on his lung and heart. Don't give me that face, I've dealt with that more times that I can count. I managed to take most of the air out, and he's back in human form to boot—"

" _ What? _ "

"I had to stab him with a needle, and that's incredibly dangerous to do when one is dealing with a semiconscious and shifted dragon. Ergo," Wes said and walked back to Dante's side. "I've dragged my cot in so he has a better place to sleep, but I need  _ you  _ to get him clothes. Button-up shirt. I'll check back with him in an hour, but tell me if he has any problems beforehand, okay?"

"Okay… okay, thank you, Wes!" Kain looked ready to try to close the distance and hug him again, but Wes gave a solid glare that stopped that movement.

"Thank me by leaving."

Dante stayed silent while Wes finished with him. He could feel the human's hands shaking under him as he worked, and his eyes looked irritated. Something told him that Sage had come a lot closer to dying than he had let on.

_ And who's fault would that have been? _

...

It was getting too much to handle. He killed Remy. He killed Jem. He nearly killed Sage. He hadn't  _ done  _ it, but he had sent the vessels and organized the attack, and he didn't call it off when the dragons showed up. It was his fault. And they were still housing him, letting him recover, letting him  _ live.  _ Dante wanted to ask why. He wasn't sure if he wanted the answer.

_ I don't deserve to be here. _

He wanted to leave. He wasn't sure where he would go if he did. Most of him said  _ Talon,  _ go back to Talon and ask for answers, because the Elder Wyrm would have an explanation that made  _ sense _ . Just because he couldn't find an answer for everything didn't mean that there weren't any. But he was also afraid that there  _ wasn't  _ a good answer, and he'd have to face that he had tortured and murdered and sold his soul for nothing.

He'd killed people. And he hadn't felt any remorse.

_ Alright, Dante, get ahold of yourself. They're just manipulating you. This is what they want. _ Except they weren't manipulating him. They were just existing as they normally did, and making him see them.

Dante sighed and threw the blanket off him, staring at the curtains that blocked the window. It had to be around 1:00 AM, but he was awake, and he wasn't going back to sleep anytime soon. He wanted to  _ move,  _ put his energy into something that felt productive instead of just  _ lying  _ on his  _ cot _ . Which was a stupid idea, but he hadn't moved enough as it was. And his legs weren't injured. Just his back.

And his back had been  _ healing.  _ It barely hurt when Wes moved him around during the changing of the bandages.

He needed to get out. He needed to move. He needed to be  _ free. _

Dante took a breath and rolled off of his cot, landing on his stomach. The impact drove the air out of his lungs, and his chest ached, but he continued and pushed himself to all fours. He blinked away the black spots and crawled to the window so he could pull himself up. He raised his arm to the window sill and grasped at it weakly.

He felt something rip at his back and winced, but continued to pull himself up. Soon he was kneeling at the windowsill, and able to see out into the fields that surrounded them. There was barely any light pollution so far out, and the sky was clear enough to see the stars. He could imagine flying up there, just to see how high he could get before the cold and lack of oxygen caught up to him. Until there was nothing but  _ just him. _

He made to pull himself up the entire way. If he could just  _ walk,  _ he would feel better.

Then his back seized up and he was being electrocuted again, as bad as when the wound was still fresh. He dropped to the ground and shrieked, but the movement only made his back tear more. He tried to curl up on his side, but that just made his back hurt even more, the electricity go further into his bones. He just wanted to  _ stand. _

"Dammit, Dante!"

Dante felt a hand ghost over his shoulder and heard Wes swearing.

"Hurts," he whimpered.

"Bloody hell, I'd reckon it does!" Wes said. "Dammit, what were you thinking? You tore the wound on your back open again, hang tight, I need to… fix you." He heard Wes leave and whimpered again, shifting to try and make it onto all fours again. He managed to get to his elbows before he felt another rip from his shoulder and his back gave out. He stopped trying to sit up.

"Alright, I'm back. Have you ever been given stitches without painkillers before?" Wes asked. Dante felt scissors cut away the fabric at the back of his shirt.

"No."

"Well, today is your lucky day, Talon," Wes said. Dante felt him tear the bandage off gently and the sting of disinfectant that he had become used to. Then something that felt like stepping on a sewing needle, except to his back. Dante whimpered and clenched his teeth.

"Ow…  _ ow… _ "

"Stop squirming."

" _ Ow… _ " He felt like the skin around the area was tightening and shrinking, and the needle was halfway inserted through his skin.

"Just be glad it's not staples."

"Ow! Stop it!"

"Almost done,  _ stop moving!  _ Bloody hell, you're worse than Ember," Wes growled. "Alright, it's over. Now, I don't have your brace, so you're going to have to put up with being carried. Okay?"

Dante snorted. Wes was a twig, there was no way—

Wes slid his arms under his knees and back, and he lifted Dante off the ground. Dante screamed.

"Put me down!" he ordered. "Down, now!"

Wes staggered back to the cot and set him on his back none to gently, shaking with the effort. The stitches strained, but didn't break. It was his back that caused the most trouble. He groaned at the electric sparks and tingling pain that took several minutes to ease.

Wes was still sitting at the edge of the cot.

"What do you  _ want,  _ human?" Dante groaned. Wes looked thoroughly unimpressed, and it only riled Dante up more. This damn  _ human,  _ who didn't follow orders or show any amount of subordination, why didn't he know his  _ place  _ next to a dragon? Why hadn't Cobalt ever taught him his place?

"My place is at Cobalt's right hand, you wanker. Unlike you,  _ he's  _ not a bigot," Wes said and pressed the back of his hand to Dante's forehead. Dante felt himself pale. "It's fine. You're not the first dragon to say something along those lines."

"I didn't mean—"

"It's  _ fine,  _ Talon. You were trained to think yourself the superior race, or whatever bullshit. Besides, I try not to hold feverish man's words against them."

"What?"

"Only thing that you need to take away from this," Wes continued, putting a thermometer in Dante's mouth, "is that the underground doesn't run on species superiority. You're going to need to get that through your head, sooner rather than later." The thermometer beeped. Wes took it out and winced. "108.3. Damn. I'm going to change your bandages again."

Dante tried to go back to sleep while Wes worked, but it was painful, and the movement didn't help.

"So why did you stand up?" Wes asked.

_ I want to leave. I want to at least go outside again. I want to be free.  _ "I was restless," he muttered. "It seemed like a good idea at the time."

Wes snorted. "Next time something stupid seems like a good idea, don't do it."

He left Dante alone without another word.

It was going to be a long night.


	6. Ember

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ember's back

Well, that had been an enlightening trip. Terrifying, and frustrating, but still enlightening. Even if they had spent more time in the  _ airport  _ than they did visiting Ouroboros, it gave them something to go off of: breeding facilities in the Bermuda Triangle. That would strike a blow against Talon like nothing else, and it would also give them a real fighting force, more than the decimated Order and untrained hatchlings. They would need that.

Now if they could only find a way  _ in _ .

“You okay, Firebrand?” Riley asked. Ember shook herself.

“Yeah, I’m fine. I was just thinking,” she said. “I… need to check on Dante before anything else.”

“Of course. I should probably make sure everyone else is okay,” Riley nodded. They went into the farmhouse and nodded a greeting at two hatchlings that were watching some animated film. One of them smiled at Riley, but curled his lip when he saw Garret. Garret didn’t let it register and went down the hallway that housed Jade. Jess wasn’t to be seen, but that wasn’t unusual.

Wes was at his usual place in the upstairs hallway, sitting on the floor, hunched over his laptop. He looked up and gave a relieved smile.

“You managed not to die this time!”

“Yeah, I’m not hopeless!” Riley said. “How is everyone?”

“Nettle’s up and moving, no signs of lasting damage, thankfully. She’s taken a liking to Jade, like everyone else. Hamsah is safely back in human form.”

“I saw him downstairs with Astatine. Who also looks recovered, good job on that.”

“Yeah, you’re  _ welcome _ . Turns out what was causing her headaches was part of a  _ dragon horn  _ embedded in her  _ skull.  _ Keep in mind, I’m not a neurologist  _ or  _ a surgeon.”

“How did you miss part of a horn?” Ember asked, and Wes glared at her.

“Piss off.”

“Play  _ nice,  _ Wes.” Riley rubbed at one of his eyes. “Hamsah: Is his wing…”

“Salvaged? No. But it’s as good as I can make it, so the rest of the healing is up to him and the insane draconic healing factor. Sage is... still unstable, but I’m reasonably certain that he’s not going to die as long as I do my job.”

“Well, you’ve been busy.”

“Next time we send our hatchlings into a firefight,  _ you’re  _ going to be the one to do the medical work,” he sighed. “Kain is… well, he’s doing as well as he can. He’s been acting—”

“I can _hear_ you, you know!” Kain yelled through the door. Ember winced at his tone, but Wes just rolled his eyes.  
“Yeah, I know! And we talked about this yesterday, I’m just informing Riley,” Wes said back and sighed. “Bloody wanker. He’s just… moody. Irritable. He started crying a few times, which _wasn’t_ fun. Jade spoke with him for a while, and I think she’s helping, but he’s still… acting more Kain-like than usual.” He looked at Ember and made a face as if he was just been reminded of something unpleasant. Probably because he had. “Dante is facing some slight complications.”

“What?” Ember asked, stiffening. “Did he try to escape?”

“No, no, thank  _ god,  _ but the wound at his sternum got infected, and he’s sick. If I had to guess, I’d say early stages of pneumonia. I have him on antibiotics now—”

Ember didn’t bother to stay for the rest of the medical speak that Wes was no-doubt ready to start spouting. She walked into hers and Dante’s shared room, ignoring Wes’ grumbling of ‘ungrateful prat’. He didn’t matter.  _ Dante  _ was the one that mattered.

Dante was still laying on his cot, immobile, blanket pulled up past his shoulders to he looked like a floating head. Color had returned to his cheeks, but his eyes were dull, near colorless, and sweat shined off his forehead. “Ember!” he rasped, hand coming out of his blanket cocoon to reach towards her. “I… I missed you.”

“Really?” Ember raised and eyebrow. She sat down cross-legged and took his hand, lifting it to her cheek. He smiled weakly. “I can’t tell you’re lying or if you’ve just lost your mind. Maybe you’re a Dante mimic.”

“I have a fever. I’m sure I’ll go back to normal after it’s over,” he said, then looked away. “I don’t know… I’m confused.”

Ember felt herself tighten her grip on his hand, shoulders stiffening. Riley had told her not to hold out hope that he’d abandon Talon’s ways. The best that they could hope was that they’d be able to keep him under control until the worst of the war was over, so he wouldn’t be able to cause any more damage or get caught in the crossfire. She forced herself to see him as the enemy— a sickly, pathetic-feeling enemy, but still an enemy. 

_ He is a chameleon, Ember. He’s just playing you. Get ahold of yourself. _

“About what?” Ember asked anyway.

“Talon,” he said. Ember kept her expression neutral and steeled herself not to trust another word. “Sis, I… I don’t know. I want to trust them. I want to go  _ back.  _ But I… I don’t think I can. I can’t find a way to justify what they did, not after… not...” Ember blinked and raised her eyebrows. “And I can’t stay  _ here. _ ”

“No offense, but you kind of have to,” Ember said, tapping the wound on his shoulder. Dante winced. “Spine and pneumonia and all.”

“I nearly killed Sage… and I killed Nettle’s friend. Remy,” Dante whispered. “He left because Talon would have killed him if he stayed, and I… I guess Talon killed him after all, huh? I thought there was an explanation, but everything’s so  _ foggy,  _ I can’t find one... I just wanted to be in control of my own  _ life! _ ” Dante took a ragged breath, looking at Ember desperately through clouded eyes. “I wanted to be free, and now I can’t even move, I can’t shift, I’m practically human, I’m so— so—”

“Hey, hey,” Ember interrupted. Dante was shaking in his cot, whether from fever or emotion was uncertain. She knew that she couldn’t believe him, that even feverish he was still a chameleon, but that didn’t mean that she was going to leave him to stew in his emotions, real or not. “Don’t focus on this right now— everything feels worse because you’re tired and feverish. You’ll be able to think straight after you’re done being sick.”

“And Kain…” he whispered. 

Ember winced. She may have disliked Kain as much as he disliked her, but she wasn’t heartless. Anyone who saw him had to feel sympathy, and if  _ Dante  _ saw it, who blamed himself in his feverish state… Dante was probably faking the remorse, hoping to get on her good side. But he was acting so  _ pathetic,  _ so far from the Chameleon that he had been groomed to be. And she knew, from her entire childhood, that Dante  _ didn’t  _ play the pity card.

“You are  _ sick,  _ Dante,” she repeated. “Save the guilt for later, it’s not doing any good right now.”

“How can I stay with you when I—”

“It doesn’t matter,” Ember cut him off. “You’re here. You’re staying. You’re living with us whether  _ you  _ like it or not, and whether  _ they  _ like it or not. Because you’re  _ sick  _ and  _ injured  _ and you  _ can’t  _ go anywhere else. Okay? You’re staying here, and we’ll sort everything else out later.”

“I feel like I’m never going to get better…” Dante muttered. “I— I can’t keep track of time, or days, I don’t know how long I’ve been in this damn room… I tried to walk last night and could barely get to my knees… I hate this. I hate this so much.”

Ember sighed, pulling at a few strands of hair.

“It’s been a week and five days, Dante. And you’ve improved more than you know… hell, the fact that you can get to your knees is a feat, when you first came here you could barely lift your head. You’re going to get better, Dante. I promise.”

_ You have to. _

  
  


Dante did not, in fact, get better. It took another day before Dante was delirious with fever and coughing up thick mucus at every breath. Wes had managed to prop him up against the wall to keep his airways clear, but he didn’t want to stay upright. More often than not he tried to curl up, which made him whimper at the pain of the bullet grating at his spine.

And this time, Ember couldn’t stay with him. She, Garret, Riley, and Wes, along with Jade and Mist, were too busy  _ trying  _ to find a way into the Breeding Islands using a handy map that the Archivist provided. They had made, poked holes in, and scrapped five plans already— they just didn’t have the manpower. She thought about asking if the hatchlings would help. They probably would want to. But one look at Riley and Wes told her that putting their underground in anymore danger would cause one or both of them to combust.

Her money was on Wes.

In the end, Garret offered to call the Order for help. And after some arguing, mostly by Riley and Wes, they made plans to do just that as soon as Dante’s fever broke and Wes could be certain that Sage’s lungs and heart wouldn’t collapse in on themself.

“Hi, Dante,” Ember walked into the room to see Dante had gone back to lying on his side and had wrapped himself in blankets as tightly as possible. He had lost a lot of weight over the past two weeks, and with the fever his eyes had become completely unfocused. “How are you feeling?”

“Tired,” Dante muttered. “And cold. Bullets hurt.”

“Couldn’t imagine that they would,” Wes brushed past Ember and offered the thermometer to Dante, who wordlessly undid his blanket burrito and took it. Ember honestly didn’t know how Wes managed to make him so agreeable— even before Crescent Beach, he had been stubborn, and wasn’t fond of taking orders from anyone other than his teachers. Taking orders from some human would’ve never happened.

He was probably too miserable to care.

“109.7,” Wes told Ember and Dante after the thermometer beeped. “Antibiotics should be doing more, unless it’s viral. Someone  _ did  _ give you your antibiotics this morning, right?”

“I don’t like antibiotics…” Dante whined. Wes started to peel off his bandages. “Ow…”

“Well? Did anyone? I asked Jade, and she generally is good about remembering these things, but—”

“Yeah, yeah. Also told me some… things.”

“Fascinating.”

“I missed you.”

“And… you’re still delerious,” Wes nodded in a matter-of-fact manner. Ember smothered a laugh.

“‘M  _ fine, _ ” Dante said, then coughed. “If I could just move…”

“Yeah, well,” Wes sighed and unbuttoned Dante’s shirt, peeling off the soiled bandages. Dante let his eyes flutter closed as Wes worked. “You’re healing surprisingly well. When you get over the pneumonia I’ll clear you for the whole ‘walking’ ordeal. With supervision.”

Ember made eye contact with Wes, raising her eyebrows. She wasn’t sure if it was a good idea for Dante to move— when he started walking, he could start to try to leave, and that would compromise their only safehouse. Wes only shrugged back, blind to the internal conflict in her mind.

Dante was  _ dangerous.  _ She wasn’t enough of an idiot to try to deny that. He was still a part of Talon, and a large,  _ large  _ part of Talon. Allowing him to walk freely around the underground could end badly. But he still didn’t know where he was. He still couldn’t  _ shift.  _

And, Talon or not, traitor or not, she wanted Dante to be happy. That could never change.


	7. Dante

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Dante's still feverish

Dante didn’t really register much for the next few days, instead slipping between the lines of full consciousness and delirium. He thought for a few moments that he would hear Mr. Roth, telling him to get up and go to work. He could sometimes see his bodyguards standing by the door. He saw Cobalt sit down beside him and talk about… something. He tried to keep his composure as a Chameleon and not answer any of his questions. He wasn’t sure how well he succeeded, only that Cobalt took pity on him and gave him water after their conversation.

Dante woke up in a cold sweat in the middle of the night, his latest fever-nightmare still imprinted in his mind. Something about an eyeless man coming after him with a torch, and Dante being trapped in a room to small to shift, and The Elder Wyrm watching him drown in blood, talking about pitiful humanity and the stock market crashing. He looked over to see Ember in her bed, blankets strewn around her, almost like a nest.

“Ember,” he rasped softly. Ember didn’t move. All for the better, probably. He was still tired, nightmares already drifting away. He closed his eyes and tried to ignore the constant ache and sting of the bullet wounds. He was  _ so uncomfortable,  _ and it was getting harder to breathe right. He coughed and managed to get onto his side rather than his back, curling up and pulling his blanket closer to him. He looked towards the doorway, which was closed as always. He thought about calling for Wes, as if he could fix him.

_ Wes is a human, he knows nothing and doesn’t deserve half of the credit the other hatchlings give him. If he ever learned his place maybe Talon wouldn’t be hunting him down like the dog he is. _

“Well, that’s not exactly fair.”

Dante jolted and looked over. One of his bodyguards stood in the corner, arms crossed and head tilted slightly to the side, cigarette loosely held in his teeth. It was O’Connell. Dante had always thought that he was good, for a human— he was professional, serious about his job, but he wasn’t afraid of him. Never was, never would be.

“O’Connell. Where have you been?” 

“Looking for you, boss. All of the high-ups have been worrying about you, and the Elder Wyrm…  _ damn  _ is she angry. I offered to look for you— couldn’t stand to leave you in here, after I lost you the first time,” he said. He didn’t move from his corner, and his brow creased. Concerned. “You don’t look too good, though. Maybe it would be best if you stayed here.”

“What?”

“You’re a human now. Do you think anyone is going to treat you as their equal now that you’re not a dragon? You’ve said it yourself. You and I, we’re dogs.”

“I’m not human,” Dante sat up indignantly. O’Connell’s expression smoothed over and he shrugged nonchalantly. “Whether or not I can shift is irrelevant.”

“Is it, though?”

“Yes!” Dante felt his voice waver. O’Connell kept starting at him. “I’m still the son of the Elder Wyrm.”

“Boss, what you are is a  _ defect.  _ Just like Remy, Just like Kain, and just like Cobalt.”

Dante stood, clenching his fists, pain in his back suddenly gone. “I’m not a  _ defect.” _

“You’re human, Dante. And we both know how expendable we are,” O’Connell said. He took the cigarette from his mouth and blew out thick, dark red smoke. Blood dripped down the corner of his lips, and he gave a wide grin. Dante recoiled.

“If you were in Talon right now, what do you think they’d do? Welcome you back with open arms? You’re nothing more than a human now, and you’re housing with  _ rogues.  _ They’d kill you. Just like the vessels you put down.”

“I… I’m not…”

_ Human. _

Dante woke up screaming, body trembling and weak, the pain returning to him like a tidal wave that wanted nothing more to drag him under and leave him to suffocate. The lights burned at his eyes, voices too loud for him to process, and… he was completely  _ drenched.  _

“Hell?” Dante whispered, voice hoarse. His eyes darted around the room, unable to focus on any one thing. He couldn’t see O’Connell anymore, but his words were still in his head.  _ Human. Defect. Human. Human. They’d kill me. _

His eyes finally managed to lock onto something. Someone. A hazy Ember was beside him, grasping his wrists. He was… in the bathroom, in the  _ bathtub,  _ soaking wet. Freezing.

“What the hell?”

“Are you lucid yet?” a terse voice, heavy with an accent, said from the doorway. Dante blinked several times before Wes came into focus, carrying a large bag of ice and also drenched. He didn’t wait for an answer before he stepped around Ember and dumped over half of the bag into the water that Dante was in. Dante screamed. “Ow,  _ ow,  _ will you  _ shut up? _ ”

“What the hell are you doing?”

“Attempting to lower your temperature through incredibly annoying means,” Wes muttered and ran a hand through his already wet hair. “You started convulsing about fifteen minutes ago, and then you started screaming, and then I marked your temperature at 112 fahrenheit, which is heading into heatstroke territory for a dragon. Ergo, ice bath.”

“What?”

“God, are you processing  _ anything? _ ”

“No I got that, I…” Dante shivered and pulled his hands out of Ember’s grasp, wrapping them around his bare torso. He was wearing nothing but his boxers, but at least the cloth wouldn’t trap the water to his skin.

_ Human. Expendable. Defect. Defect. Just like the vessels you put down. _

“I want to talk to Cobalt,” Dante whispered, making to push himself out of the bathtub. Wes gave an entirely draconic-sounding growl and pushed his shoulders back underwater. “ _ Wes,  _ let me talk to Cobalt.”

“No way when you’re this delirious.  _ My  _ main concern is keeping you from getting heat stroke or having a seizure. Stay here.”

Dante grit his teeth and shoved Wes away, then struck out with one of his legs to keep Ember back. If they wouldn’t help him, he’d just get to Cobalt himself. Ember shouted and scrambled towards him to try and restrain him before he could crawl out of the bathtub.

“I need to talk to Cobalt!” He screamed, shoving Ember away again and trying to struggle to his feet to no avail. Wes grabbed both of his wrists and forced his chest beneath to water. “Let me talk to Cobalt! I need to talk to Cobalt!”

“Dammit, Talon!” Wes growled. “I know you’re feverish, and I  _ know  _ you’re not in control of yourself, but it is 2:00 in the morning! Wait until tomorrow!”

Dante twisted his wrist out of Wes’ grip and grasped at the human’s shirt, but gave up on trying to struggle to Cobalt himself, instead focusing on getting air. Wes stopped moving as well. There was a silence.

“I can’t believe this wanker. Terrifies me, wakes up, soaks the entire bathroom, screams about Cobalt for a solid two minutes, and then exhausts himself.  _ This  _ is why I never should have agreed to learn first aid.”

“You’ve dealt with worse,” Ember said.

“That doesn’t mean I’m happy about taking care of _him_. Why did I even try to save his life?”

“Because you care?”

“Incorrect.”

“I need to talk to Cobalt. It’s important.”

“It’s 2:00 in the morning!”

“Please, I need to know.”

“Bloody hell. Let’s start with removing your hand from my shirt collar,” Wes said and let go of Dante’s wrist. Dante let his own hand drop, still gasping for breath. “Alright. Cobalt is asleep. Hopefully. He needs to do that from time to time.”

“Where is he?”

“On the couch downstairs.  _ Asleep,  _ just like I was until _ someone  _ started convulsing.” Wes gave a heavy sigh and closed his eyes, elbow resting on the rim of the bathtub. “What do you need to know?”

Dante took a few more breaths. He needed to ask  _ Cobalt.  _ Cobalt was the dragon, he knew more than his human ever would.

_ You’re human, Dante. Human. Defect. _

“Humans,” he whispered. “How— how are you treated? In Talon, how—”  
“ _This_ is what I was woken up for?” Wes asked. “Look, you don’t want to know, Dante. And _I_ don’t want to tell you, it’s all a can of worms that I’d rather not open at this hour.”

“ _ I need to know! _ ” Dante screamed. He lunged for Wes’ arm again only to be stopped by Ember, who grabbed his hand and forced it back to his side. Dante snarled, feeling heat under his skin. “I need to know! Let me know, dammit, I’m a goddamn human now, I— I need to know! I  _ need  _ to—”

“Dante, you’re hurting yourself,” Ember spoke levelly. “It’s not important right now.”

“Goddammit, of  _ course  _ it is!” He twisted his hand out of her grasp and tried to push her away. “I’m a human—”

“You’re still a dragon.”

“I can’t shift, I  _ might  _ as well be human, so I need to know how—  _ Get back here, Wes!  _ Answer my damn question!” Dante screamed. Wes stopped in his retreat out the door, but he didn’t turn around. 

“Dante, if you want any information out of me, you’ll stop moving.  _ Now, _ ” he said. Dante stilled and let his arms fall back to his side. Wes still didn’t turn. “Now, here’s what just happened. You were running a near-fatal temperature, you were delirious, and you started convulsing. Then you started screaming, which probably woke everyone else on this floor. I’m going to make sure everyone’s okay and smooth over whatever nerves you just set off. Then, as I wait for your fever to go down, I’m going to get enough caffeine in my bloodstream to actually think about this properly. And  _ only  _ then am I going to attempt a conversation.”

Dante swallowed. “Fine.”

Wes walked out without another word, leaving him and Ember alone. Dante shivered again and tried to move into a position where he could breathe in a bit easier, but only succeeded in sending a few ice cubes over the edge of the tub. He looked around the room again, eyes going to the door in hopes to see O’Connell again. Nothing. He closed his eyes and focused more on his breathing, waiting. He didn’t know if he wanted to get an answer. But he  _ needed  _ one. Not only for himself— for his bodyguard as well. Whichever one  _ survived. _

_ Humans are short-lived and easily manipulated, there’s a reason they’re treated as inferior. Talon has a reason for everything. _

_ Human. Unable to shift. Defect. Me. Human.  _ Human.

_ I’m the son of the Elder Wyrm and the youngest executive in recent history. I’m not a human. They’ll fix me. There’ll be an explanation for everything. This underground is destined to die bloody, just like Cobalt. _

_ If the situation were reversed, I would’ve killed them. I would have  _ killed  _ them. They’re showing you mercy despite what I’ve done, despite the fact that I’ve given them nothing. Despite the fact that I’m…  _

Ember ran a hand through Dante’s tangled hair, bringing him back to the present. Her nose wrinkled slightly and she  pressed a cold washcloth against his forehead, putting the most pressure on his temple.

“I’m not… an invalid,” he muttered, hating the fact that his words slurred together.

“I’ve started to pick up things from the resident medic; if you apply cold to the head and neck it can reduce fever because of the amount of veins and blood vessels and whatnot,” she said. Then she gave a heavy sigh, closing her eyes. She looked so much older than sixteen in that moment, and so  _ exhausted  _ that it scared him. “You should really just let Wes do his work and go back to sleep. He’s tired, I’m tired, you’re… feverish. And you don’t want to know what Talon does to humans that fail their orders.”

“You know?” he whispered. Ember groaned softly. “ _ Tell me,  _ Ember.”

“I don’t know much, just what Riley let slip once,” she said. “And I know that Wes is a unique case. Most humans aren’t told about dragons and work normal jobs, or they’re bribed into silence. Promised wealth, information, whatever. Like  _ Griffin. _ ”

“Who’s…”

“A guy that got shot in the back of the head by a Viper because he was playing three sides of the board.”

“Oh,” Dante whispered.

“Don’t act upset by it, he deserved it,” Ember shook her head, re-wetting the washcloth before applying it back on his forehead. “But my point still stands. You’re not going to react well, considering how delusional you are right now.”

“I’m not—”

“You’re muttering to yourself, having fever dreams, and under the impression that you’re a human just because you got shot. It’s delusions.”

“Ember, I can’t shift back,” he said. It came out as a whine. “I— I haven’t shifted in so long, I barely remember what I look like. What’s a dragon if he can’t shift or fly or—”

The door opened again, and Dante’s head snapped to attention so fast that it spun. Wes stood there for a moment before he walked over and sat beside him, taking Ember’s position with the washcloth. Dante could barely find it in him to be embarrassed.

“Humans,” Dante said.

“We’re treated like shit,” Wes said. “I was kidnapped by humans posing as police officers, back in London, shipped off to America within the week, by which point I realized that I was trafficked rather than arrested. They said that I had to comply, or they’d kill me and my family. I spent most of my time in the compound—”

“Compound?”

“Living space for humans who aren’t willingly brought in. Locked from the inside, stuck in a communal area with about fifty other humans with varying skills. I was the youngest by about four years, got me  _ no  _ respect. Bodyguards keep us contained, officers would pull us to isolated areas and give us orders or…” he shook his head. “Do you  _ really  _ need answers, or can I go do something productive?”

“Please,” Dante asked. Wes groaned and pressed a handful of ice to the crook of Dante’s neck, making him involuntarily shiver again. “My bodyguard is still in there, he’s human, and Cobalt said… he said that he’d be punished for letting me go. It wasn’t his  _ fault.  _ And  _ I’m  _ human now!”

“You’re not human. Humans usually have morals.”

“ _ Wes. _ ” Ember gave the human a pointed look.

“Just saying,” he growled, voice yet again sounding near-draconic. “This isn’t exactly a time in my life that I enjoy talking about to  _ Riley _ , let alone Talon over here. I’m not going to try to be polite about it.”

“How old were you?” Dante asked, breath picking up for reasons other than pneumonia. He thought that humans joined willingly— manipulated, sure, and once they were in there was no way out, but not  _ kidnapped  _ into it, taken from their homes _.  _ Was that how he would be treated when he came back to Talon? He had done everything to make it to the top, but would it mean anything now that he was stuck in his human form and accepted the help of rogues? Specifically  _ Cobalt’s underground? _

_ But the rogues kidnapped me. _

_ They saved my life and I know it. _

“I had turned fourteen two weeks beforehand,” Wes said. He sighed. “I, uh,  _ somehow  _ did well enough for them to deem me important, and was shown the great secret.  _ Dragons,  _ as if I cared at that point. I moved to a different part of the compound, given a stipend. I could go outside, sometimes, but I still had my family hung over my head, so I couldn’t go for  _ help,  _ and I was sixteen and didn’t really know how to interact anyway.”

“Oh, some things never change,” Ember muttered. Wes rolled his eyes, but didn’t respond. Dante couldn’t find anything to say. Except…

“I’m  _ sorry _ .” 

Wes snorted, flicking a strand of hair out of his face. “Don’t be. It was a while ago, I’ve gotten over it.”

“And you’re still helping dragons. You’re… you’re helping  _ me— _ ”

“Don’t get sentimental, Talon. I  _ don’t  _ like you. The only reason that you’re alive is because I didn’t want to have to break the news of your death to Ember.”

“Seriously, Wes?” Ember said. “Try for some tact.”

“I’m just being honest,” Wes yawned and rubbed his eyes. “I don’t like him.”

“But  _ still. _ ”

Wes shrugged and gave Dante a thermometer, which he took without complaint. He waited for the beep as Wes continued to cool off Dante’s head and neck. A small part of him was in the mindset to point out how pathetic it was, but most of him was too braindead to care, and the rest of him was trying to sort out what Wes just  _ said. _

He had been taken from his home at  _ fourteen  _ and held in a communal  _ compound.  _ When Dante was fourteen, his biggest concern was passing his exams and getting recognition from his teachers. No one had told him that humans were kidnapped. No one had told him that the breeder dragonelles were almost always taken unwillingly. What else was Talon  _ hiding? _

And why did it take being  _ shot  _ and being a  _ human  _ to figure it all out? Wasn’t he supposed to be better than that?

The thermometer beeped.

“109.4 fahrenheit, which is… good enough,” Wes muttered and pulled the drain. “If we keep cold compresses on your head, neck, and wrists it will most likely keep you alive, and with any luck this fever spike will have killed the worst of the bacteria. Or virus. I’ll check on you every hour, and Ember will get me if you start convulsing again. Please. Don’t start convulsing.”

Dante didn’t respond for a while, and Wes sighed.

“Ember, there are clean clothes for him on the vanity, can you…”

“Yeah, sure. I am my brother’s keeper, apparently.”

“Thanks,” Wes left without another word, Dante’s eyes following the human out of the room. 

What had happened to Wes  _ wouldn’t _ happen to him. And that was  _ one  _ person’s story— a person who refused to learn how to respect authority. Wes had it coming. If Dante were in his situation…

_ I  _ **_was_ ** _ kidnapped. _

_But they’re not asking me for anything. They’re helping._ _I would’ve died without them._

_ And I’m not innocent. I was never innocent. _

“Dante, what was that about?” Ember whispered. “What are you thinking?”

“I…” Dante whispered. He sniffed and covered his mouth with his hand, a single truth so blindingly apparent in his mind that he didn’t know how he hadn’t realized earlier. Talon would never,  _ never  _ offer freedom. Not for the humans that worked there, not for the dragonelles that were forced to produce eggs, not for the dragons like his  _ sister  _ that saw its morals as corrupt. 

Another truth, that Dante had known for days: Cobalt’s Underground would be kinder, would be morally sounder, that Talon ever could be.  _ Anything  _ would be.

“I can’t go back,” he heard himself whisper. “I can never go back.”


	8. Dante

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ember leaves, again, and Dante can now walk. Kinda.

Wes cleared Dante to walk the day after his fever broke, and he, Ember, Cobalt, and the soldier Garret left by the evening. Ember didn’t bother to explain  _ why  _ she was leaving again, other than that they were working on  _ ‘working on an alliance’,  _ whatever that meant. Not that he was surprised by her vague explanations, at this point. When had his sister become so good at keeping secrets from him?

The morning after Ember left, Dante managed to successfully drag himself upright for the first time in two weeks. His legs shook from the weight, unused to having to support himself. It felt like he was walking for the first time again, back when he couldn’t balance on two legs and would trip over everything in a two-mile radius. Annoying, to say the least. It didn’t help that his back remained stiff and gave off sharp pains whenever he tried to move. But he was still  _ standing,  _ and he didn’t need a brace or someone to hold him up. That was  _ progress.  _ Sad as it was.

He remembered, back in Crescent Beach, he had picked up the hobby of rock climbing with his human friends. He  _ loved  _ it, more than he’d admit to anyone— being able to ascend straight up a cliffside, with nothing but a harness and fragile human limbs holding him in place. He felt so  _ happy  _ up there, in the silence and isolation and  _ freedom _ . But even if he  _ was  _ able to get a surgery to take the bullet out of his spine so he could shift, he doubted he’d ever get back the agility necessary to rock climb again. 

Dante shook his head to clear his thoughts and limped out into the hallway, empty without Wes’ cot. He continued down the hall, past the bathroom, and to the stairs. Those made him pause. Walking from his room to the stairway was hard enough, and actually going  _ down  _ them was going to be near impossible, unless he wanted to just let himself fall down them. But he didn’t want to spend another day in his room with nothing to do.

“Need any help?”

Dante stiffened and turned around. The boy with scars across his face and a missing eye— Kain, he remembered— stood in the hallway as well, a hand resting on the wall as he stared at Dante.

“Jade actually told us to keep you supervised if you decided to try and move today, and I was also going to head downstairs. It’s no trouble,” he continued.

“I love supervision,” Dante sighed and nodded. Kain smirked in response as he pulled Dante’s arm over his shoulder and put an arm around his waist. It supported a good deal of his weight and relieved the worst of the pain, but Dante still had to repress the urge to squirm out of the way.

“There are worse things than being under watch,” Kain said as they started down the stairs, taking every step slowly. “We could have locked you in the tornado shed. Quite a few people people voted for that option.”

Dante furrowed his brow and held back a shudder. He had only been able to keep himself still while he was healing because he was either unconscious or delirious most of the time. Being able to walk but still being confined to a single room would have him climbing the walls within hours.

“You had a  _ vote? _ ” he finally responded.

“Yep. And let me tell you, I strongly considered voting for the shed. It would make our lives much—” Kain cut off with a shriek as he misjudged a step and nearly sent them both headfirst down the stairs. “ _ Shit,  _ sorry. Sorry. Depth perception is non-existent.”

“It’s fine,” Dante gave a tight smile and put his spare hand on the banister to steady the both of them.

“I never really took it into account before… yeah,” he muttered. They reached the bottom of the stairs and broke apart, Kain moving to create more space between them.

“Sorry, again,” Dante said.

“Useless apologies, Talon Boy,” Kain said and turned to what Dante could tell was the living room. There were two others sitting on the couch, but other than that the area was empty. “Hey, you wanna play Uno or something? Do people in Talon even take time for violent card games, between… making demon deals and kicking puppies or whatever you do?”

Dante could tell that it was a joke, but it felt barbed, coming from Kain’s mouth. 

“I am familiar with Uno. I have a sister that was quite fond of violent games that were not designed to be violent.”

“Oh, right. Ember. Interesting lady.”

“You’ve met her?”

“Yes. It was an unpleasant experience for everyone involved.” Kain walked over to the couch and ruffled the hair of one of the other dragons, who paused the movie and turned around to glare at him.

“Do you want to play Uno with the Talon guy?” Kain asked and gestured Dante over. 

“ _ Talon guy?  _ Is that what you guys call me?”

“Yeah, definitely. It’s better than what Wes calls you.”

“What?”

“Yeah, he usually refers to you as  _ wanker, Talon,  _ or  _ that one idiot.  _ To be fair, I think the first and third describe all of us, by his standards,” Kain said with a smirk that stretched the scars over his face. He turned back to the other two as Dante limped over and sat down on the floor, movements stiff and clumsy. “Uno?”

“I will never pass up an opportunity to pound you into the dust, Kain,” one of the people said and grabbed a deck of Uno cards from the side table before joining Dante on the ground. He was older than Dante by a few years, maybe eighteen or nineteen, and looked like the polar opposite of what a Talon agent should have— sandy brown skin contrasting his bleached, shoulder length hair. Half of it was shaved off and showed a tattoo of a cobra underneath his hairline.

Kain and the other person— a young girl with dark skin, darker hair, and startling pink eyes behind red-tinted glasses— sat down around the coffee table as the boy dealt.

“So what is your  _ real  _ name, Talon Guy?” The girl asked. She didn’t smile, or give any other sign of comradery. Dante looked away.

“Dante Hill.”

“Dante,” she repeated and tilted her head to the side. “Like—”

“Dante’s Inferno, I know. I’ve gotten that response plenty of times.”  _ From Conner, Mace, Dr. Olsen, before he started rapidly apologizing, O’Connell, who did no such thing… _

“I was actually thinking the dog from Coco,” the girl responded, a smirk playing at her lips. Dante blinked in spite of his situation. He hadn’t gotten  _ that _ before. “My name is Astatine. The punk guy is Hamsah. The depressed guy in a hoodie three sizes too big for him is—”

“Draw four, Astatine.”

“ _ Goddammit,  _ Kain.”

After that, the first game went rapidly. No one spoke, but they snarled at each other so vehemently that Dante could barely see the playfulness in their gaze, reminding him that it was just a game. Dante could barely keep up with the three others. They seemed to prefer putting cards down as quickly as possible rather than thinking up a strategy. It was embarrassingly easy to read their faces. Hamsah still won, though, and put down his last card in triumph before he was promptly hit with a throw pillow. 

“So… Talon Boy.  _ Dante Hill _ ,” Hamsah asked as he collected everyone’s cards and started to reshuffle. “Now that you’ve been introduced to this wonderful underground and this terrifying card game, what are you thinking? Do you still think Talon is the way to go? Or do you think you’re going to stay?”

Dante looked down at the coffee table.  _ That  _ was a good question. And obviously, there was a correct answer— these people may be acting friendly, but they didn't trust him. His training told him to gain their trust, and to say whatever they wanted to hear. But in truth, he didn't  _ know  _ the answer. He couldn't go back, knowing what he did now. Knowing that Talon was dirty from the inside out, and if he went  _ back  _ then he could be treated as no better than any other human. Which he  _ wasn't.  _ He wasn't human, and being unable to shift didn't  _ change  _ that, because it was a problem that could be fixed. But the word  _ defect  _ still rang in his ears.

“I’ll probably stay here,” he tried to act nonchalant with a shrug. 

“Probably?” Hamsah asked. Dante bit the inside of his cheek and put a card down in lieu of response. “Just asking, Dante Hill. We put a lot of faith on the assumption that you’re not about to sell us out.”

“Hey,  _ you  _ and  _ Kain  _ put a lot of faith on the assumption that he’d clean up nice,” Astatine said. Dante cringed.

“Yeah, yeah,  _ we know, _ ” Hamsah rolled his eyes. “But, unlike  _ you,  _ Kain and I also went through the moral crisis. It’s just… taking him longer than usual.”

Astatine made a noise in the back of her throat that Dante took for a threat. Which wasn’t  _ right—  _ he had faced Rein back in Vegas in his true form. He had spoken with the Elder Wyrm as a professional. He wasn’t supposed to feel threatened by some hatchling who looked to be  _ younger  _ than him. And yet, this girl  _ did _ scare him, in a way that felt deeper than just primal instinct. 

Besides, even if he  _ could  _ fight back, which he couldn’t, he didn’t know if he deserved to.

“I’m not about to go  _ back  _ to Talon,” Dante said, meeting Astatine’s eyes for a brief moment. “I just don’t know if I can stay here in the long run.”

“Oh,  _ of course, _ ” she muttered.

“Take mercy on the poor child, Astatine,” Hamsah laughed.

“No, please don’t. I live for these fights,” Kain grinned, almost playful. “Dante vee Astatine.”

“This is why you have no friends, Kain.”

“ _ Hey! _ ”

Hamsah smiled at Kain and shoved his shoulder hard enough for Kain to knock into Dante.

“Dante Hill, I can assure you that the moral crisis is just a part of going rogue. Unless you were cut out to be a breeder or to be sent to the defect… wherever. And the sooner you pick your side, the quicker it goes away.”

“He  _ did  _ pick his side,” Astatine pointed out. “He picked Talon.”

“Yeah, well…” Dante couldn’t think up a response. “Obviously, it was a bad choice. And I appreciate that you’re giving me a second chance.”  _ Or third chance, probably. Maybe fourth. _

“You’re welcome. Don’t make us regret it,” Kain said.

“And remember that the option is still on the table,” Astatine added.

“Okay, now you’re  _ trying  _ to scare him,” Hamsah ruffled her hair and began to deal back the cards. “Forgive Astatine. She’s usually not like this.”

“Yes she is.”

“Yes I am.”

“You’re not helping your  _ case,  _ Tine.”

“I’m being cautious, just like everyone else is trying to be. Just like  _ Kain  _ was with that St. George bastard. What is  _ with  _ you, Kain?”

“He’s…” Kain turned to Dante, seeming to consider his words. “He’s too small and sad for me to hate. I mean, you didn’t see him when he was still bedridden. It was pathetic. You have to find some sympathy.”

Dante opened his mouth, but nothing came out for a while.

“I’m  _ charmed, _ ” he finally said and picked up his cards, still trying to steal glances at Astatine. He knew that he was going to meet backlash in this underground, but he didn’t expect it to hurt as much as it did.

That hurt scared him more than he wanted to admit.

“Astatine,” Dante started. “If you don’t mind me asking… is it  _ me  _ that you hate, or just Talon in general?”

She snorted. “I don’t  _ hate  _ you, Coco-boy. I simply don’t  _ trust  _ you. Even the people who went through training but left before their assessment made the choice, free from influence, and only  _ then  _ were they allowed into the operation. You? Shot and kidnapped. Now inside our Network, but not aligned with it.”

“But I’m not aligned with Talon, either,” he said. And it was  _ strange,  _ to say that. And mean it, as well. “After seeing what they’ve done, I’m not going to be a part of it anymore.”

Astatine cocked her head to the side, eyes boring into his skull. Dante looked down at his hand. 

“We’ll see,” she finally said, then shook herself. “This underground ain’t too bad, and Cobalt is pretty great once he knows you’re not about to kill him. He saved  _ my  _ life.” Dante furrowed his brow, and she continued. “I was going to be sent to the defect lab when I was twelve. Albinism, if you were wondering, comes with a nasty side effect of generally awful vision. I overheard them talking about preparations and ran away before they could ship me off. Cobalt found me about two weeks later. Gave me a guardian and a safehouse and these beautiful glasses. I still managed to get blindsided by a vessel during the fight, though, so I guess that Talon was right in saying that I wouldn’t be much use to the organization.”

Dante winced. He  _ hadn’t  _ heard of the defect lab before, other than what people in the Underground had told him. But he knew, in the back of his mind, the vessel programming had to be experimented on  _ something. _

“The injury is all healed now,” she shrugged. “Besides, it needed to be done. If St. George dies, nothing will stop them from going at us. Although they’re still mostly dead.”

“Except for Ember’s boyfriend,” Hamsah said. Kain hissed softly and Astatine crossed herself, which earned a laugh from Hamsah and a smirk from Kain.

“Uno.” Astatine held up a single card.

“Oh shit. I’m not losing to a fifteen-year-old again,” Kain muttered. Dante laid down a card, but he wasn’t really thinking about it, too lost in thought. Astatine had been  _ twelve  _ when Talon decided that she was useless to the organization. She would’ve been killed for being born wrong without even a chance to prove herself.

He couldn’t really be surprised, at this point.

“What are you thinking about?”

Dante blinked and looked at Hamsah, who was staring at him with his chin propped up by his fist, showing another tattoo of a compass on his outer forearm.

“It’s just… I’m not surprised by this anymore,” Dante said slowly. “Hearing about what Talon has done. Hearing people say that it’s a horrible organization and backing it up. It feels strange that I’m not shocked anymore. Or defensive. That’s all.”

“Yeah, Hamsah got that, too. And Kain.”

“You get used to it pretty quick,” Kain nodded. “And I get that Talon is a can of worms that takes some sorting though. I legit got  _ homesick  _ at one point. I lived out in the middle of Louisiana swampland and I got  _ homesick  _ for it _.  _ Draw four, Astatine”

“Goddammit.” 

Dante nodded slowly.

“But you really  _ do  _ get used to it. And this life is a lot better than one in Talon, or one without the aid of the Network,” Kain continued. “Of course, I wasn’t kidnapped into it, so you do you. Even if the whole kidnapping thing did save your life.”

Well  _ that _ was blatant manipulation. Even if everything he had just said was true.

“It’s just confusing. I can’t go back, obviously. But I don’t know if I can to stay  _ here,  _ either. I don’t know if I could ever go directly against Talon like you guys do,” Dante said and drew a card, then put it down.

“Well, you’re not going anywhere right now,” Hamsah pointed out and put a card on the discard pile.

“You didn’t say uno, Hamsah. Draw two.”

“ _ Shit. _ ”

“I get that reminder pretty often,” Dante muttered to himself. “But I  _ will  _ be walking normally again soon enough.”

“Of course. That’s why the tornado shelter is still an option.” Astatine gave him an obviously false smile. “Watch yourself, Mr. Hill.”

Dante swallowed dryly and focused harder on the game. They continued to play in relative silence, none of them quite able to get down to  _ Uno.  _ It wasn’t as cut-threat as the last game, but Kain did end up throwing his sock at Hamsah and missing spectacularly. It was amazing, seeing hatchings so at ease with their situation, even with the stiffness between himself and Astatine. So unprofessional. They didn’t care how they looked in front of him, or in front of  _ anyone _ . In Talon they all would have been reprimanded a hundred times.

In the end, Dante won. Kain hit his shoulder, hard, and Hamsah swore vengeance, but they treated him a bit more gently than when Hamsah won. He couldn’t tell if it was because they didn’t feel as comfortable around him or because he was showing visible pain from sitting on the floor.

“Well, that was fun, but I think I need to actually go do my chores before Jade hits me with a spoon or something,” Hamsah stood and stretched. 

“You have chores here?”

“Yeah, we started them a few days ago. We also have sit-down meals, except for the people who are too… wait, I nobody’s too injured to move anymore. You were the last person who was stuck upstairs, which is why Wes postponed leaving until your fever broke. Riley was complaining a  _ lot  _ over it,” Hamsah clapped. “Everyone has to suffer through the sit-down meals, now! Does anyone want to join me in laundry with Nettle?”

“Oh  _ hell  _ no. I have a healthy fear of that lady,” Kain stood and gave a hand up to Dante, misjudging the depth between them and hitting him in the face. “Sorry, Dante.”

“It’s fine,” Dante took his hand and pulled himself up, bracing himself on Kain’s shoulder. “I don’t think she’s that bad.”

“She… really hates me,” Kain said.

“Can you blame her, though?” Hamsah asked.

“You can stick your hand in a blender.”

Dante winced.

“Anyway, even if I  _ did  _ want to help you with laundry, I promised to make lunch. I swear Jess is going to combust, with how much we’re eating,” Kain said and turned his working eye to Dante. “Do you want to join me?”

“I can’t cook.”

“I’ll teach you. C’mon.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay, so I generally don't like having OCs, but there aren't enough named characters in the underground for me to use. Dante deserves some friends, even if I have to make them myself.


	9. Dante

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jade exists, Dante takes a walk, and Ember makes a short appearance

Dante fell into a somewhat comfortable rhythm. He’d wake up early, make his cot— he had wanted to take Ember’s bed, but Jade moved a rotating hatchling into his room to keep guard, and they took it before he could— and usually stay in his room or go downstairs to help whichever lucky hatchling had breakfast duty. He usually stayed quiet during meals, listening to the conversation. He picked out weaknesses and information— he didn’t know why, because he  _ couldn’t  _ go back to Talon, but it would be helpful if he  _ did—  _ and gave no one any information that they could use against him when they ultimately dragged him into the conversation. He would usually help with simple chores like cleaning, but he was rarely left alone. No one  _ said  _ that they were guarding him like Kain did on the first day, but it was obvious. If the situation were reversed, he would do the same.

_ If the situation were reversed, I’d already have killed them. _

His back got stronger as well. He would still struggle with transitioning from sitting to standing, and it still hurt, and his movements were still stiff and clumsy, but he could  _ walk _ . That was enough.

A week passed like this. For the most part, he didn’t mind it, even if a small section of him recoiled at how mundane and lowly his life had become. He had been working alongside the Elder Wyrm less than a month before. He was supposed to be in  _ China,  _ speaking with the eastern dragons about joining Talon. It would’ve been a great thing to have all dragons under one banner.

_ Or would it? _

“I do believe,” a voice spoke behind him, making Dante jump, “that the oven is as clean as you’ll ever make it.”

Jade stood behind him, arms folded behind her back. Dante put down the baking soda and cloth he had been using to attack the inside of the oven. She stared at him calmly, but it still made him nervous. Which was stupid. It wasn’t like she was a  _ wyrm. _

“Hi. Yes, it probably is,” he said and grimaced. “I’m a bit of a nervous cleaner.”

An understatement. He remembered reorganizing Liam’s bookshelf by genre and author last name for an entire afternoon because Ember was mad at him. He had never gone as far as to try to clean up the kitchen, but it was serving as a decent challenge and an even better distraction. He had already washed down the counters and the sink, and he was planning clearing out the fridge next. 

“I thought Astatine was with you,” she said. Dante snorted. “I know you don’t approve of your supervision, but I trust you’re smart enough to know why it’s necessary. I made a promise to protect these hatchlings.”

“Yeah, but I’m not going to  _ run off, _ ” Dante motioned out the window. “I don’t want… I  _ can’t  _ go back to Talon, whether I want it or not. I just want some time to myself that isn’t holed up in my room. I haven’t even been outside, per your request.”  _ And it sucks.  _ “Besides, Astatine hates me.”

“There is a difference between hatred and lack of trust. Give Astatine some time to sort you out— she’ll make her decision soon enough,” Jade said and walked over to him, picking up the baking soda to put it back on the shelf. “But either way, you’re not going to find any answers by cleaning,” she said. A small sigh escaped Dante’s lips. Probably for the best, though— his back was killing him, and he had needed to sit down more and more often as time passed. “Walk with me.”

“What?” Dante blinked.

“I trust that you do, in fact, wish to go leave the house?” Jade asked. Dante nodded. “Then walk with me. I feel that it’s time we have a conversation alone.”

Dante swallowed, and for a moment he considered bringing up the fact that he still had to finish cleaning the oven. But he did want to go outside again. He gave a short nod and shrugged his shoulders, as if he were perfectly calm and not in the presence of an eastern dragon.

_ I wonder who the Elder Wyrm decided on to go to China. _

He had been so eager to prove himself last month and make up for the Night of Fang and Fire. But walking alongside Jade, the idea of telling an entire race of dragons to  _ join Talon or die  _ made bile rise up to his throat.

They walked in silence for a few moments, and Dante properly took in the farm that he was on. The yard itself was fairly large, and the cornfield beyond stretched out until it hit the treeline. Jade didn’t try to urge him to walk faster through words or picking up her pace, but didn’t offer aid when he stumbled or had to stop and regain his posture.

“I received a phone call from Garret,” Jade said after they had walked into one of the dirt trails that led into the cornfield. “He’s a former soldier of St. George, and has accompanied Ember, Cobalt, Wesley, and Mist on their mission.”

“I know who Garret is.”  _ My sister’s boyfriend.  _

“He says that everyone is still safe, and that Ember would like to talk with you sometime tonight,” she continued. 

“What are they doing?” Dante asked.

“They’re working to create an alliance,” Jade said simply. Dante must have shown his frustration, because she continued with, “I’m sorry that I can’t tell you more, but the less you know the safer it is for everyone. I can tell you that, if this alliance goes to plan, we will be able to make a strike against Talon.”

Dante twitched, feeling a weight pull at his stomach. He was just sitting there, complacent, as the organization that raised and  _ trusted  _ him was under attack. Nothing that he could do, and nothing that he thought would be right to do, but didn’t he owe Talon some of his loyalty? Everything he had, he had because of Talon. He didn’t want to see it fall. Not like everyone else did.

“You’re still loyal,” Jade mused, almost to herself. 

“Not anymore,” Dante lied. Or… was he? “They’ve done too much that I can’t forgive. I see that now.” He swallowed and felt Jade’s gaze bore into him. She knew it wasn’t the truth. But that didn’t mean that he had to  _ give  _ her anything.

He didn’t even know what the truth was.

“There is no shame in what you’re feeling, Dante,” Jade said.

“What, exactly, am I feeling?”

“Confusion.”

Dante nearly fell down and had to stop walking, trying to straighten out the crick in his spine where the bullet still rested. The clouds in the sky were thick and dark, promising rain in the next day or so. Humidity hung in the air like a thick blanket. He had never felt air so thick out in the desert where he grew up.

He loathed to admit it, but he almost missed that place. No doubt that now there was another hatchling there, neck deep in human studies. Probably either bored or stressed out of their skin. Climbing up the walls, either way. 

“Back when I was younger, I would always go out flying in the rain,” Dante whispered. “It hardly ever happened, of course— Ember and I lived somewhere in New Mexico, in the desert, so the rain was far, far in between. But it was something we both looked forward to… flying is one thing, but the feeling of the wind and the rain against you…” he sighed and looked up at the sky. He could almost imagine how it would feel, to fly up, up, so far away until there was nothing but him and the clouds. “I wanted that freedom  _ so much _ . I was willing to do anything for it.”

“There are easier ways to achieve freedom. There is no need to sell your soul,” Jade responded. She continued walking, and Dante lurched forward to keep up. “You are not bound to Talon, Dante, by what you have done for it or by what it has done for you.”

“It’s the only home that I know.” He had  _ not  _ meant to say that. Dammit, he was a chameleon and the son of the Elder Wyrm, he was supposed to be better than this. He wasn’t supposed to act  _ vulnerable _ in front of a rogue, and an eastern dragon at that.

“That does not mean it is your only home,” Jade said. “I grew up in southwest China. I spent fifteen years there with my mother before I left. Since then, I’ve lived in the Hua Shan mountains for the most part, but I spent time in the coastal cities, and I lived for nearly two decades in the Gobi Desert. Now I’m finding a home here, in America. Trust me when I say that there is not one place that you are bound to. A home is not a place. It’s just where you make your life.”

Dante sighed, reaching out to pull a stray leaf off of a corn stalk. “Sounds lonely, if you ask me.”

“Are we living in the same place?” Jade asked. Dante looked up to see a smile at her lips. “With how many hatchling surrounding me, I find it difficult to be lonely. And aren’t you the one that wanted some solitude?”

“Different form of lonely,” Dante said.  _ But was Talon much better? At least here, no one is afraid of me. I don’t have to be a perfect chameleon in order to be accepted.  _ “I don’t know my place here. It was prisoner, for the first week or two. But then… if they had left me, I would have died. I  _ am  _ confused.” Why was he still talking?

When was the last time he spoken honestly to anyone? Back in Crescent Beach, maybe, back when he could still speak to Ember? But even then, it was distant. He had wanted to be the perfect human, the perfect student, and the perfect  _ brother.  _ He covered his emotions and worries and insecurities in white lies as far back as he could remember. 

But maybe if he had spoken honestly back then, things would have gone differently. Maybe his sister wouldn’t have left, and they’d still be in Talon together. Where they belonged, or they were at least  _ supposed  _ to belong. 

Or maybe he would have left everything behind that night in Crescent Beach.

“It’s a really beautiful day,” Dante said to break the silence. “I’m glad that I could go out today.”

“I’m glad that you could as well,” Jade replied. “Now, would you prefer to stay out here for a while longer, or finish cleaning out the oven?”

Dante smiled, and it felt genuine to him. “I think I’d like to stay for a while, if it’s no trouble.”

“Of course not. Take the time you need.”

 

...

 

Dante was back in his room, face-up on his cot, with a cold compress strapped to his back. Apparently, hunching over an oven and then taking a two-hour walk wasn’t the best thing for the bullet lodged in his spine, because his back had seized up some time before dinner. He had barely managed to make it up the stairs, and more or less collapsed when he reached his room. Astatine, when looking for him, gave him the mercy of an ice-pack and some privacy, but other than that the suffering was ruthless.

“Dante,” The door opened. Jade entered, looking him up in down with slight concern. “Still unwell?”

“No, I’m fine,” Dante lied. “Just a bit achy, still.” His spine burned all the way up to his neck and down his tailbone, and his legs weren’t feeling so great, either.

“You missed a wonderful meal,” Jade said and sat cross-legged beside him, putting a plate by the head of his cot. It smelled suspiciously like a hot pocket. Why did this safehouse have so many hot pockets? “Although it looks like you needed the rest. I apologize if I pushed you past your limits.”

“No, no, it was fine. It was worth it,” Dante waved off the words and slowly made to raise himself onto his elbows. Jade put a hand on his shoulder before he got halfway up and pushed him back down.

“A wound left ignored will fester and decay, Dante,” she said. “Which is often a metaphor, but is quite literal in your case. Your body demands rest, and it demands to be still. Listen to it, or you risk hurting yourself further.”

Dante sighed heavily and tried to roll his shoulders back to relieve some of the tension in his body. He was truly sick of the cot that he seemed to practically live on. It was uncomfortable, it was small, and all he could do was  _ lay there  _ and  _ think.  _ He didn’t want to think, and he  _ definitely  _ didn’t want to think with nothing else to do.

“I have Ember on the phone, if you would like to talk to her,” Jade said. Dante’s gaze sharpened, and he tried to rise to his elbows again before Jade pushed his shoulder back down. She handed him a plain flip phone. Dante nodded his thanks and took it.

_“_ Ember?” he asked.

_ “Hey, tweedledum,”  _ came the reply. Ember’s voice was tired, but more relaxed than he had heard it ever since Crescent Beach.

“Hi… I thought you were tweedledum.”

_ “Well, you’re the dumb in this equation.” _

“I beg to differ.” Dante felt a smile come to his lips. “So how are you? Haven’t gotten yourself dead, obviously.”

_ “No, our mission went off with only minor inconvenience, and no one was injured during it. That might be a first.” _

“That’s a relief,” Dante said. “What  _ was  _ your mission?” Silence. “I can’t sabotage it if it’s already over, sis.”

_ “I’ll give you the details when we get back,” _ Ember said. Dante sighed.  _ “C’mon, Dante. You have to understand that we have to be careful around you.” _

“Yeah, I know,” Dante muttered. He caught Jade’s eye and looked away. He couldn’t even have a phone conversation without supervision. “I just miss the point in our lives where we could be  _ honest  _ with each other.”

_ “So do I, _ ” Ember said softly.  _ “It was a goodwill mission for some potential allies. That was incredibly, incredibly illegal, on so many levels. We may or may not have annoyed the US government. That’s what I can say.” _

“That’s vague.”

_ “I know.” _

“I understand it, you know,” Dante said. “About keeping me in the dark. It’s frustrating as hell, but I understand. I just… I hope you know that I don’t want this underground to… to…” he rubbed the bridge of his nose. “I don’t agree with everything that you do, but you shouldn’t  _ die  _ for leaving the organization. And I don’t agree with everything Talon does, either. I’m not…” he paused. 

What was he even trying to say?

“I meant what I said, when I said that I couldn’t go back,” he finished. “I couldn’t live with myself.”  _ Doesn’t mean that I don’t want to. Doesn’t mean that I want Talon to be destroyed.  _ “Do I make sense?”

_ “You’re getting there, _ ” Ember said. Dante was pretty sure that she was smiling.

_ If only I knew what  _ **_I_ ** _ think. _

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> My sister and I actually had the nicknames tweedledee and tweedledum when we were younger, and we'd always fight over which one we were. Ergo, I tried to transfer that onto Dante and Ember.
> 
> (Please review)


	10. Dante

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Family dinner conversations go as well as can be expected.

Two days. It took  _ two days  _ before he could make it out of bed without his back seizing up.

Most of that time was spent reading, but whoever owned the house didn’t have taste in books that matched his. It was all old dystopia, like  _ Fahrenheit 451  _ and  _ 1984  _ and  _ The Giver.  _ Dante had never been a fan of dystopian lit— it tended to make him uncomfortable, and he read to enjoy himself, not to be kept up at night, pondering reality, which he did more often than not as it was. Kain offered to pull up a PDF of  _ Dante’s Inferno,  _ but Dante politely turned down the offer. 

He woke up late in the morning of the third day to find that his back was no longer protesting its very existence. He could move without wanting to curl up and die. Standing was harder than usual, but once he was upright it didn’t hurt any more than it usually did. Which meant that he wasn’t stuck in his  _ cot  _ anymore.

“Hail the conquering hero.”

Dante started and look towards the door, where Nettle was staring at him. Dante sighed.

“Hey, Nettle,” he replied. “Hope that guard duty wasn’t keeping you from doing something more interesting.”

“Nope. It was either this or going out to the two-mile guard post. As annoying as Dante-sitting is, I think I’d rather set myself on fire than go outside in this weather. At least setting myself on fire would get to the point,” Nettle said and yawned. “You missed a wonderful breakfast. We have leftover hotpockets.”

“Great. I love hotpockets,” Dante muttered to himself and ran a hand through his hair. He needed to take another shower sometime soon. And he needed a haircut. He hadn’t let his hair get so long ever since Crescent Beach, and long hair was inconvenient. “I didn’t know that we had a guard post.”

“Well, we do. Two of them, and it’s a four-hour rotating job. I had it from midnight to four this morning, and let me tell you, mosquitos aren’t afraid of the dark,” she said and walked out of the room, beckoning for Dante to follow. He did, leaning against the wall for support. Apparently he still wasn’t completely back to normal.

Damn, it had been a  _ month.  _ How was he not back to normal? 

A nagging voice in the back of his head still insisted on the words  _ human  _ and  _ defect,  _ but he shook his head to clear it away. He may not be able to shift at the given moment, but that didn’t mean that he wasn’t a dragon. It just meant that he was injured. Dragons couldn’t shift when they had stitches in, either. A bullet was a bit more  _ permanent  _ than stitches, but he could still get it taken out. Someone had to be able to. Not in this underground, but maybe in Talon—

_ No.  _ Not an option anymore. He couldn’t go back to Talon. They’d want information about the underground, and even if Dante  _ did  _ know where they were, which he  _ didn’t,  _ he couldn’t tell Talon anything. He would figure something else out, remove the bullet, and…

He still had no idea where his future was going. Not to Talon, where he had grown up and trained for a future that he couldn’t pursue. Not this underground, that he had tried to wipe off the face of the earth but still offered him mercy and shelter. He didn’t know what else there was for him. But the world was a big place. He could try to find comfort in that.

“Hey, Dante,” Nettle drew him out of his thoughts as they reached the stairs. He turned to lean against the banister and look her in the eye, which were more hesitant than usual. “I’d… I want to apologize for how I acted when we first met. I was pretty rude to everyone, including you, and I want you to know that I’m not usually like that. It’s just… after that night, I didn’t really… yeah. Sorry.”

Dante bit his lip, feeling something cold settle in his gut. “You shouldn’t apologize. I deserved it.”

“No you didn’t.”

“Yes, I… really did. I—”  _ Killed Remy.  _ Dante bit that part back. He knew, he  _ knew  _ that they would want to know. But he didn’t want them know. Not yet, at least. “I was a horrible person, and still unfailingly loyal to Talon. I needed the wakeup call. So… thanks, I guess.”

“We’re even, then.”

“Yes.”

Nettle gave a nod and started down the stairs, looking back every few moments to make sure that Dante could keep up.

“What caused the change of heart?” He asked to fill the silence.

“I punched Kain in the face and Jade had a very long conversation about emotions. She said that the anger was just there as a cover from the grief. But I couldn’t just pretend that the grief doesn’t exist, so… I’m trying to make amends.” Nettle reached the bottom of the stairs and waited for him to catch up. “It’s good advice.”

“Sounds like it,” Dante replied and descended the rest of the stairs without falling on his face. “So… where are Kain and Hamsah?”

Nettle rolled her eyes. “Your normal friends are busy. Kain is at a two-mile point until lunch, and Hamsah is leading combat training with everyone who doesn’t have other chores.”

“Jade really keeps you busy.”

“Yep, although we have slacking time in the afternoon. Not all of us have the natural draive of clean half of the kitchen every time we get antsy,” Nettle gave a small smirk, and Dante smiled back. Genuine— those smiles were coming easier to his face, as of late, his chameleon’s mask slowly fading away.

“Guilty as charged.”

“Well, the kitchen and inside windows are yours,” she said as they entered the living room. Jade was on the couch, talking to a hatchling that Dante didn’t know. She caught his eye and nodded, then found Nettle and smiled.

“Thank you for keeping an eye on him. There’s about an hour until lunch— you should sleep until then,” Jade said calmly.

“Yay…” Nettle retreated back up the stairs.

“Dante, help Sage in the kitchen, I have a few things to do before I can offer my own assistance.”

“Who’s...” Dante started, then remembered the evening weeks ago, when Kain had come into his room to get Wes. Sage was the dragon that nearly died.

Dante turned on his heel without another word and walked into the kitchen. Sage looked up from his work as he approached and gave a silent smile. He was wearing a low-cut shirt that exposed pitted scars over his chest, and he walked with a noticeable limp and stiffness in his torso. Dante preoccupied himself with cleaning the dishes that had accumulated over the past few days. As much as Kain tried to teach him, he still wasn’t good with food preparation beyond toast. 

He could practically  _ hear  _ O’Connell’s voice in his head:  _ Boss, you’re taking a ‘light breakfast’ too far. I can’t do my job with guarding you if I’m too concerned that you’ll faint or something. I request that you make something other than toast. _

Dante had hated when he said things like that. As if he was concerned for him. A human had no place to worry after a dragon. But he was never truly angry at O’Connell for it, because it was refreshing to have one human who treated him like any other authority figure rather than a god. And usually he was right about light breakfasts, and Dante would start feeling lightheaded three hours before lunch.

Sage didn’t talk to him while he worked, unless he needed Dante to pass him something. When he spoke, his voice was soft and wheezed just enough for Dante to be able to hear. He could pass it off to a cold or a congenital defect if he tried, but he knew better— it was because of the Night of Fang and Fire. It was because of  _ him.  _

If he focused a bit too much on the dishes, and then grimy sink they left behind, Sage didn’t comment.

“Wash your hands and then help me set the table, okay?” Sage broke the silence after he finished preparing lunch, patting him on the shoulder before he walked out of the kitchen. Dante put down his sponge and scrubbed his hands free of the grime that had accumulated while working before grabbing the stack of plates and joining Atlas in the dining room. 

“You know, for a fancy high-up in Talon, you’re not half bad at domestic chores,” Sage said, eyes meeting Dante’s with a smirk as he rang the bell that signaled for lunch. 

Dante shrugged back. “Quick study.”

It took five minutes for everyone to come into the dining room from their chores or combat practice. Hamsah sat down next to him, and Dante could see a bruise around his jawbone. Hamsah caught him looking and gestured towards it.

“This is what happens when you don’t block a foot to the face. Learn from my mistakes, Dante Hill,” he said. “Though I don’t see why we’re training in human form. If we’re going to be fighting, I know that  _ I’m  _ not staying human.”

“I know that you won’t. But it’s still important to know in case you can’t shift,” Jade said. Hamsah groaned and rubbed the back of his neck. “Is this a matter of not thinking it necessary, or not wanting to teach?”

“They’re insufferable!”

“Hey!”

“It’s true!” Hamsah said. “Y’all are impossible to teach, and it’s  _ worse _ in human form. I don’t know how my trainer put up with me, if I was anything like this.” 

Dante tuned out of the playful bickering and focused on the food in front of him. Ten-year-old-Dante may have jumped at the chance to eat nothing but hot pockets for two days straight, but he was no longer ten years old and missed real food. Sage hadn’t made anything complicated— turkey sandwiches, fruit salad, and some type of soup— but it was better than what Dante had eaten for the past two days.

Kain came in about five minutes into the meal, narrowly avoiding walking into a wall before he took the empty seat next to Dante. Sweat shone from off his forehead, and his hair stuck to his face and neck.

“I hate it here,” he said and took a sandwich.

“You’ve mentioned that a few times,” Hamsah said from Dante’s other side.

“It was sixty degrees out this morning. It’s eighty-five, now. Where I lived, the weather may have been awful, but it had the decency of being consistent.”

“Wear layers, Louisiana-Boy,” Astatine rolled her eyes with a smirk. “And stop whining.”

“You can’t tell him to repress a key point of his personality,” Nettle said dryly. Dante felt his lips twitch.

“Why do you hate me, Nettle?” Kain put a hand to his chest. Dante could tell from his voice that the question was light, but something about it seemed stilted. It didn’t help that Dante couldn’t read his face, or even look at it well. About a month after the Night of Fang and Fire and the scars were still prominent.

“Because you’re a bitch, Kain,” Nettle responded, also lightly.

“Language, Naomi,” Jade said softly. Nettle slumped, and an awkward silence descended on the table.

“Welcome back to the land of the living, Talon-Boy.” Kain ruffled Dante’s hair and spooned some soup into his bowl. “Nice to see you less sad-looking than usual.”

“But no less shifty,” Astatine noted. Hamsah rolled his eyes, but Dante saw that a lot of people looked like they agreed. “Just saying. He’s a shifty looking guy.”

“You are a very cynical girl, Astatine Lopez, considering that he still looks like hell freezed over,” Hamsah said. He was drinking soup straight from his bowl instead of using a spoon.

“You’re a very trusting person, considering that you were trained to be almost as paranoid as Cobalt,” Astatine replied. “And that you didn’t tell anyone your name for two weeks after we met you. And—”

“Why must you bring up all of my mistakes?”

“—you still sleep with a knife under your pillow.”

“ _ Seriously? _ ” Hamsah put down his bowl. A few hatchlings laughed. Dante stuffed the rest of his sandwich in his mouth and reached for another. “Are you  _ trying  _ to embarrass me?”

“A little. But it  _ does  _ prove my point,” Astatine leaned forward in her chair and made eye contact with Dante. For a second her eyes turned to slits beside her glasses, and Dante froze in his seat. Then her eyes went back to normal, and Astatine straightened. 

The conversation turned away from him, and Dante made sure to keep his head down through it. He focused on his food, and then helped Sage clear the plates when it was all done. He offered to clean the dishes alone. 

He  _ was  _ getting very good at domestic chores.

“Talon-Boy.”

Dante jumped and turned from the sink to see Astatine standing in the doorway. Her face wasn’t openly hostile, but it certainly wasn’t friendly.

“Hi, Astatine. Are you looking to help me, or is that just wishful thinking?”

“Definitely the latter.”

Dante nodded and shut off the water. He didn’t really want to be doing the dishes, anyway— he could hear a movie going in the main room, and he could use some time to mindlessly watch something. But he wasn’t too keen about talking to Astatine, either. She never acted angry with him, but she was still cold.

“So what brought you here, if you’re not going to help?” He made sure to keep his voice light, chameleon mask coming into place. “Unless you just want my company?”

“Hamsah likes you,” she said. Dante cocked his head to the side and leaned against the counter. “I told you before, Dante, I don’t hate you. But I don’t trust you, either. You  _ say  _ that you’re not going to go back to Talon—”

“I’m  _ not. _ ”

“—but you won’t side with  _ us _ , either. You see the dilemma? Even if you’re telling the truth, we don’t know what you’ll choose if it comes down to Talon or us.”

“If they attack, it won’t matter either way,” Dante shrugged and tried to say it nonchalantly. “I’ll be the first to die.”

“So you get off on a technicality.”

“I would be  _ dead. _ ”

“I want something solid, Talon-Boy,” Astatine said and took a step forward. Dante felt his shoulders tense. “People are putting  _ trust  _ in you, but you’re doing nothing to back it up. So what happens when the water gets hot? You betray Kain? You betray Hamsah?”

“Hamsah,” Dante repeated the name. Astatine stopped, the shock on her face enough for Dante to finally understand  _ why  _ she refused to trust him. He had thought it was because he was a chameleon, or because he was the son of the Elder Wyrm. But it wasn’t because of  _ him  _ at all.

“You’re afraid that I’m going to hurt him. That’s what this is all about,” he said. He knew that he was right.

“He was trained as a viper,” Astatine said. Dante felt his eyes widen, and he knew it was noticeable. Hamsah  _ wasn’t  _ a viper. Not like Lilith, or like Faith. He cared too much. “He couldn’t bring himself to pass his final assessment, so he contacted Cobalt and got out. It took a lot of work for him to open up to  _ anyone,  _ and I was there every step of the way for him. So having him trust you, knowing that you could turn around and stab him in the back? Damn straight, I’m scared. He’s my best friend.”

Dante knew what he should do— give her reassurances, promise to align himself with the Underground, say whatever he needed to in order to gain her trust. That’s what his training told him to do.

But his training had gotten a bullet embedded in his spine. And it had gotten a lot of people killed.

“I’m not going to give you a promise that I can’t keep,” he started. “And there isn’t a word out of my mouth that I expect you to trust, other than the fact that I’m not innocent. I’ve done a lot of things that I’m not proud of, and I’ve gone further into the organization than anyone here. But I’m not going back, and I’m  _ not  _ going to hurt any of you. You saved my life, and I…  _ care. _ ” The word felt bitter on his tongue, because he truly meant it. “You guys are pretty much my only friends, at this point.”

There was a silence between them, Astatine’s expression considering, but still the closed-off neutral he had been faced with for the past week.

“I don’t want you to blindly trust me, Astatine. I don’t deserve that. But I  _ do  _ care about what you think of me, because I can see how much you mean to Hamsah. I’d like a second chance, if you could give me one.”

“A second chance?” she asked. “What was the first one spent on?”

Dante looked down. “A lot of mistakes.”

“Like?”

He clenched his jaw, studying the floor tiles. A  _ lot  _ of mistakes, and Astatine wanted to know them. His instinct told him to lie. Tell her a story where his crimes were less, and make it so she could trust him.

But that would get him  _ nowhere. _

“I betrayed my sister. She asked me to go rogue with her, and I didn’t. I tried to bring her back to the organization, and I tried to apprehend Cobalt. Twice. I helped make the vessels. I let them kill people. I knew it was wrong, at times, but I didn’t care enough to stop. I…”

The Night of Fang and Fire.

That was the one secret he had to keep.

“I’m not innocent. You have every right to mistrust me. But I  _ want  _ to make amends, Astatine. Please.”

Astatine stared at him for a long moment, stance closed off, expression showing no emotion. 

Then she extended her hand.

“Second chance,” she said. Dante felt his shoulders relax, even though he was unaware that he had been tensing them. He shook her hand and forced the chameleon’s mask to drop, his smile genuinely relieved rather than polite.

“Second chance,” he repeated.

_ Let’s hope I find the right decision, this time. _


	11. Dante

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The moral crisis continues, and is (somewhat) concluded.

_ Reflection time. _

That was one of the things that Jade had started, along with dawn meditation. Right after dinner, they would all go to the living room and sit down. And  _ reflect.  _ Sometimes someone would voice a particularly troubling thought or question, but it was mostly silent between them for thirty minutes. Some people liked it. Especially Nettle. She was one of the people who would talk during it, usually about Remy, or sometimes Jem. Others people didn’t like reflecting. Kain, for one, had started crying at one point, but still refused to say what was on his mind. Dante was still shocked that dragons  _ could  _ cry.

Dante wasn’t fond of reflection time. His thoughts always led back to Talon. He  _ wanted  _ to hate the organization for what it had done. What was done to the so-called ‘defects’. The breeders. The compounds of humans brought in unwillingly. Everyone around him did, but he couldn’t find it in himself. The organization raised him, gave him a home. Didn’t he owe them  _ something? _

But didn’t he owe this underground as well? They saved his life. They opened his eyes. They gave him their  _ friendship,  _ something that he had never truly felt before outside of Ember.

Perhaps he had just sold too much of his soul to Talon.

“Thirty minutes,” Jade said and stood. Dante heard a few loud breaths of relief and gave one himself. “If you have anything to share, I suggest you say it now.”

Most people looked at Kain, but he stood and walked out before anyone could ask questions. He hadn’t cried this session, thankfully, but the memory was fresh in everyone’s mind. Sage followed close behind him, and then Hamsah and Astatine stood up.

“Anyone up for Monopoly?” Astatine asked. Dante nodded and made to rise from the couch, but Jade put a hand on his arm before he could get up all the way.

“I’d actually like to speak with you, Dante,” she said. Dante looked up at her, and his brain went through the past few hours and any mistakes he could have made. He technically hadn’t been allowed to go up to the roof with Kain, but he had been supervised for that. And no one had  _ caught _ them.

He remembered back when he had reprimanded Ember for her midnight flight back in Crescent Beach. If she had felt anywhere close to where Dante felt after a month under supervision in the farmhouse walls, he understood why she had done it, and kicked himself for getting so angry at her.

Jade was still waiting for a response.

“Right. Of course,” he said with a smile and forced himself to his feet. Everyone dispersed around the, either to their rooms or to the dining room, where they’d probably be fighting over Monopoly until midnight. He gave a seemingly light smile that didn’t reach his eyes, then let it drop a moment later. “Is something wrong?”

“No. Nothing’s the matter, and you’re not in trouble,” Jade said. He must have shown something on his face, because she smiled a moment afterwards. “All children have the same face, when they suspect that they did something wrong. Come, we can talk outside, if you’d prefer. Allow us some privacy from unwanted ears.” There was a whispered curse behind Dante, and he turned around just in time to see Hamsah walk out from behind a high-backed chair, shooting a playful glare at him.

“Yeah, privacy would probably be good. Though I feel it would be unwise to go on another walk.”

“You said it was worth it last time,” Jade pointed out. “But no matter. Let’s go out to the porch— there’s a chair, so you can sit.”

Dante nodded and followed her outside and onto the faded porch. He opted for standing, leaning against the railing as he looked out into the cornfields. The sky was a painting of orange, pink, and blue, casting everything in shadows. Who knew that he could gain such an appreciation for the outdoors when he was barred from it.

“You are still unsure of your place,” Jade said after a silence.

“Can you blame me?”

“No. There were many times that I was unsure of my path, back in China,” she said. “Part of me says, even now, that I should not be aiding these Westerners in their war.”

“I feel like that would be counterproductive.”

“But I was raised to avoid wars. It was not in place to fight them, so I stayed silent through all of the ones that I’ve lived through,” Jade said. “I’ve lived through a lot, and over the past few months, I’ve begun to wonder if I could have changed any of what happened. Now that I can’t, I wish that I had done something.”

“I’m… sorry,” Dante said. “But what if it was China, or— or the other Eastern Dragons that had attacked another people? Even if you were  _ there  _ and you knew it was wrong, could you bring yourself to turn your back on everything that you knew, knowing that you could kill people that you…  _ cared  _ for?”

“That is an interesting question. One that I cannot answer,” Jade said. “But who do you care for more? The people in Talon, or your sister? Or this underground?”

Dante swallowed. “I  _ don’t know. _ ”

But did he really, truly care about the people in Talon? He was only well-liked in Talon because he was a good chameleon, and the moment he failed, he knew people would turn on him in an instant. The people who he felt closest to back there were Mist, who went rogue, and his bodyguards. One of which was dead.

And Faith. He could have felt close to her, he _knew_ that he could have, if she had been given a bit more time. Selfishly, he was relieved that he didn’t hadn’t gotten attached before the incident.

“Talon gave me everything. And I gave Talon…  _ everything.  _ I barely know myself without it,” he continued. “I’m not like Ember. I can’t just forget everything and leave it behind.”  _ Can’t I? _

“You have more in common with Ember than you think,” Jade said. 

“You really think so?”

“You both share a tough strain of stubbornness, for one,” Jade smirked. “And the both of you love the other, even after what happened between you.” Dante looked down at the wooden railing, and traced the grain with his finger instead of answering. “She  _ does  _ love you, Dante. That never stopped.”

“I don’t deserve it.”

“I don’t think that love is ever about whether or not anyone deserves it. Neither is forgiveness. But…” she gave a sigh, and Dante finally looked away from the railing. “There is something about her that you should know by now.” Dante felt his shoulders tense at Jade’s words. “It might have been wiser, or perhaps more fair, to tell you earlier, but Ember said that you’d take it badly, so we kept you in the dark. You needed to focus on your recovery in the beginning, and as time went on you still needed to regain your bearings in the underground. And frankly, you may not have believed us any earlier than now.”

Dante remained silent. Waiting.

“The Elder Wyrm created the both of you as vessels,” Jade said. Dante’s chest went cold, for a moment he forgot how to breathe.  _ Vessels? _ “If she died, you were meant to rule Talon as her successor. But she wasn’t supposed to die. Ember was created to be her true Vessel, so she could transfer her conscious into Ember’s body when her own became too frail. Ember’s mind would not have survived the procedure.”

“What?”

“I’m sorry, Dante. But that’s the truth. Ember— her soul, her thoughts, her morals— would have died. She nearly did, when you first brought her in. She was only made to extend the Elder Wyrm’s life.”

“No.”

“You were her backup, in case it didn’t work. She never intended for you and Ember to rule together.”

“No.”

“Dante—”

“ _ No. _ ” 

It couldn’t be true. The Elder Wyrm had told him that he and Ember would rule Talon together, she looked him in the eye and  _ told  _ him. He had done everything to ensure that his sister was safe, through his  _ entire  _ life. The Elder Wyrm  _ had  _ to have another explanation, one that didn’t involve killing his sister. There had to be something else. 

“Dante, do you need to sit down?”

Dante covered his mouth, feeling tears prick at his eyes. He had already done so much for Talon, he had killed rogues and innocent civilians, but he  _ couldn’t  _ have brought his own sister in for execution. There was another explanation somewhere, or Jade was lying, or  _ anything _ . The other option… was that he had  _ helped… _

“Dante?”

He opened his mouth, but no sound escaped.

There was nothing to say.

 

...

 

Dante didn’t remember the rest of the night except in faint blurs at the edge of his mind. He knew that he had managed to get back to his room, that no one tried to come in, and that he had cried more than he thought possible, but anything beyond that escaped him. By some miracle he managed to sleep, curled up on Ember’s bed, wrapped in blankets as if they could protect him from what he had done.

He wanted Ember back with him. Ask her for help. Guidance. Make sure that she was still  _ alive. _

When he woke up in the late morning, he didn’t attempt to get up. He wanted, in some part of his mind, to do something, to move around and feel productive and  _ not  _ think about what Jade had told him. But he stayed in bed, wrapped in blankets with his knees drawn to his chest, lost in his own head.

He was still trying to find a way around it.

Jade could be lying. It could all be a ploy to get him to turn on Talon. But it made  _ sense _ . It gave a reason as to why the Elder Wyrm made him leave right after he brought Ember in, even though he had the best chance of controlling her. Why Doctor Olsen would never meet his eyes when he mentioned Ember. Why Ember had always,  _ always  _ been favored when they were younger. 

Why the Elder Wyrm even  _ cared  _ for Ember’s life when she had an extra heir.

That was the most sickening thought.

The more he thought, the more unavoidable the conclusion was. The Elder Wyrm had used him to help kill his sister. She never intended to hand over the empire to him. She had tried to  _ kill  _ his  _ sister _ . He could have killed his sister. He was a pawn. He was a goddamn pawn. He would never have made it to the top. He would never be free.

_ Or could I be? _

The underground wasn’t an option for him— he had mutilated and killed them with his vessels without a second thought, and he  _ couldn’t  _ come back from that. Not permanently, at least. But he wasn’t going back to Talon. He could move to a different country someplace so far off the grid that Talon wouldn’t come looking for him. Remake his life, away from the politics and the power struggle and the war.

_ But the war will never be over.  _

He was born into it, and he  _ knew  _ it. He had fought it on the sidelines, playing god with the vessel’s lives. He had been pulled to the opposite side, the losing side, by Cobalt’s underground, and they weren’t about to let him leave. If he did run, the war would eventually catch up to him.

And maybe he didn’t deserve to leave the war yet. He still had so much to make up for, and so much to prove to the underground that he… he was attached to. He couldn’t see them as numbers anymore, like on the Night of Fang and Fire. He saw Hamsah throwing Uno cards at Astatine, and Kain trying to teach him how to make breaded shrimp. He saw  _ Ember,  _ his best friend, his  _ sister _ , sitting next to him through the pain and the fever, refusing to leave his side even after he had abandoned her over and over again. 

And it was  _ Talon  _ that told him that they were his enemy. They had lied and lied and  _ lied  _ again until he could barely tell which way was up, even after a month in the underground. They had told him to kill. He had pulled the trigger, but they had told him to. He had sold his soul to Talon for  _ nothing.  _ They  _ used  _ him, and he had let them. He had nearly killed his own sister for them. 

No more. He didn’t belong to them. He didn’t owe them his loyalty.

He was going to burn Talon to the ground.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Dun dun duuuun... yes, I just posted eleven chapters in one day. I had all of them on hand, and I didn't want to worry about keeping an update schedule. 
> 
> Look out for the second installment, "From the Truth of a Thousand Lies", coming to a fandom server near you. When? I have no idea. But it's coming, and it will probably be posted here before it's on FF.net, this time.
> 
> Review, I'm begging you.

**Author's Note:**

> I said that I wouldn't kill Dante. No other promises were made.
> 
> Please review. Even if you also reviewed on FF.net. I need them.


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